For the Glory
by The Titaness
Summary: In the far future, a team of scientists dare to undertake the greatest endeavor in mankind's history-the creation of the human individual. However, as they cope with the protests of the public at large, their experiment slowly escapes from their control.
1. Embarkment

"Do you even believe in a god?" The question sounded resilient as always, ringing in her ears like some godforsaken fly curious on finding an exit to such a specious trap. Many times the fly was batted away until finally squashed by her palm slapping quite brutally against the window, but Cytla Jomaran didn't care much for the fly. It was an annoyance, and an annoyance must be executed to ensure a greater peace and greater health for prospects of the future. And the future was right before her.

Her stalwart stature perched with triumph before a set of cylindrical tanks suitable for the growth of larger organisms, and inside these tanks were the embryonic aliens of what they had so joyously named Project ETHEREAL. It was an unbelievably bold project in the eyes of the public, but it was an outrageous cry of inhumanity against life by the congregated and stubborn pack of angry church dwellers just outside the doors of the research complex. But their absence caused a sense of nirvana and heavenly pleasures to gently settle the air of the lab around them. It was a silent lullaby gently caressing the budding ears of the two alien sisters protected by thick shells of glass and motherly fluid. Cytla was beside herself with pride of her own merit, genuine gratitude of her colleagues who fearlessly stood by her in this daunting endeavor, and, in some ways, compassion for the two growing youths cradled in the most of what science could grant them. The masses of tissue curled into roughly the fetal position, hugging their rounded knees and, autonomously, growing exponentially—their growth would be complete in another two months—but the specimen on the right was slightly larger and more developed than her sister. In the beginning of the project just four months before, the elder was implanted first with gene sequences coding for unique traits—traits that Cytla had envisioned for her future children she was too afraid to have on her own. It was the best idea at the time. The Gene Sequence Database was in its prime of development—Colress stated this, himself. All they needed was an intricate and completely original project as a test drive for the computer's limits, but Cytla, to her massive disadvantage, had fallen too deeply into the project. As she looked upon the tanks with great awe and triumph, her eyes were glazed over in a kind of maternity she thought she would never feel in her lifetime. But she was blind even to herself.

They were aliens in every light to the untrained eye, but Cytla knew better—these aliens were in the growing stages every human individual has set for them in stone.

Beside her stood Cheren Nuvema, a recruit to the lab for this specific assignment. He, to a much lesser extent than Cytla, had devoted himself to Project ETHEREAL, but he was constantly aware and even paranoid over the consequences of their actions. Every morning as he walked into the lab he could still hear the loud and angry repetitive chants of the frightfully religious and supposedly moral mob prowling just beyond the gates of the research lab. The voices buzzed around his brain for several hours afterward, and when it was finally time to quit, he had hardly any confidence in himself to keep hold of his life just until he reached the interior of his car's steel cage barrier. He looked upon the growing mass of a potential person with slight horror and wonder—horror that they now displayed vicious audacity in Mother Nature's design, but wonder with how much meticulous care and surreal love that nature embedded into every living individual. However, he always exercised the true might of a scientist and feared the grasping fingers of Murphy's Law strangling these budding and grotesque individuals before they even had a chance to finally be rid of the chains suspending them inside the protective glass shells.

At his question, she merely gave a dismissive laugh and flashed a glance towards his way. She gave no proper recognition of the importance of an abstract concept; she only had interest in the here and now and what will be in the interest of the human race. A spiritual object, real or otherwise, was trivial to her endgame, useless in her methods. As long as the right thing is done, she believed, there is no need for a god of any sort. She turned away from him and brought her attention to the ever-working super computer called The Master, assigned to consistently monitor the vital signs and growth rate of both specimens as well as enforce the correct expression of their heavily customized gene sequence. It was a job only The Master could accomplish so perfectly and systematically.

However, Cheren was less than thrilled at her aloof countenance, but it was nothing that surprised him. In fact, it was a topic that he would have rather ignored for the rest of his life for the life of checking, double checking, and triple checking the status of every individual subject without the complexity of emotional attachments. But science has its own agenda. Every time he dares himself to gaze upon the mass of tissue floating nonchalantly and even mystically in the aqueous environment, strange wisps of doubt cross over his mind and wrap his scientific judgment in the silk of night. He felt buried alive by the pressure his superiors stack onto his chest, by a nagging force gnawing away at the rear of his consciousness, but most forcefully, by the presence of those rabid rioters running rampant back and forth beyond the ringlets of steel. It would only take one more push to finally have him buckle, but for now, he felt a sort of comfort around the presence of Cytla. At least she's more human than Colress, he thought.

"I can't be bothered by such a trivial subject." She sighed and her words flowed out like a smoothened river. She was exhausted, the blindest of men could see even that, but despite many warnings of lab work under the conditions of weariness, she defiantly stayed and stubbornly worked—and prayed—on Project ETHEREAL's development. She, foolishly enough, tossed away the empty and silent shell of her life for what she had hoped would be something extraordinary, something that was thought of often but never executed. She wanted to be that person of moral etiquette, a person so filled with benevolence that she would give rise to life in the forbidden way—she would fill the shoes of Mother Nature for the greater moral good of humanity, though rare she found the graceful acceptance of such an endeavor. She saw the horror in life—the sex, the drugs, the overall physical weakness and inabilities of her fellow humans as time slowly ticks life away—and vowed, by the dire topic of blood, to strive for humanity reaching a greater plateau closer to perfection. However, the example could not be her for she was cut from the same mold of imperfection as the billions and billions of humans dotting the globe. Instead, she drove her efforts to create something that, on a glance, would be the same as any other human created, but its arrival would be clean and pure, and its judgment would be free of any blatant and instinctual habits that imprinted devastation upon her own kind. Project ETHEREAL was to be a diamond in the rough, purity in the flesh, and above all, her gift to the world.

Cheren was slightly offended by slick brushing he had just received, but he vehemently pursued Cytla as she swayed from machine to machine with a pretense of involvement. "Over three billion people in the world believe in one god or another. How can you say it's trivial? You have to consider it—after all, we're playing God here. I know they won't accept this." She stopped her pretense and absentmindedly stared at the screen of The Master as it calculated and recalculated myriads of formulas, numbers blitzing across the screen faster than her eyes could register. It was a great annoyance that this young boy before her deliberately dug into the most sensitive fabric of tissue this project had to offer, but she was beyond patient enough to professionally repair it.

"There are a number of gods. How many do we honestly need? It just goes to show that humans are too afraid to make themselves their own gods. So they have to invent one, or many, to look up to. Then they see what the power of science is capable of. Some revere it for what it is—the explanation of how the world works. Some honor it as a religion in its own right and would defend it to the dying day. Some detest it for Hell knows why—you and I both know this. And others, like us, clearly see what we can do with it. But with this—this here," She took long strides to the tanks and gestured to the growing bodies with her hand, fingers perfectly parallel to each other, to claim Cheren's full attention. She was animated now, more so than he would've expected, but her true intent was to eradicate this discussion for at least until the completion of Project ETHEREAL. A little force was necessary and proved most effective, as it was when formulating the grant proposal and public address of this godly endeavor. "We, as scientists, believe that this is a milestone in the history of knowledge. We see the possibilities, both good and bad, that this project has to offer. We can see that—we can see everything. But then those who claim to love life but take life," There were no windows in the lab for the contribution of heat and light the sun would stubbornly cause any experiment to deviate from the intended pathway, but she faced one of the two exits—the exit closer to the main doors of the research facility—and Cheren imagined that she was talking to the reddened faces of the protestors outside. "Have the audacity to condemn this project—and by extension, _us_—on the grounds that _we_ are creating life that only God can create. We might as well add ourselves to the list of gods in the world." She chuckled quietly then turned her attention to her specimens, the early stages of what would be her people. "But if their God did exist, I'd think there wouldn't be much strife in the world or any at all. I mean, really," She turned to Cheren who had kept his silence in fear for his own safety. "You'd think that a great and powerful deity who rules the world and loves mankind so much would either retract the idea of freewill or repeatedly make itself known to the people so they'll stop raising Hell in general. Sounds like God has neglected us. Since everything as we know it was created by human design, why not take the reins, so to speak. I believe that we are much better off without a deity."

"And morals? What should we do then?" Cheren's voice was steady but low. He was smart in keeping calm to deter any concentrated assault on his body, or perhaps the loss of the opportunity to achieve glory. "How do you think people would go about interacting without morals? The world would come to part."

"Morals and religion are different, Cheren." She utilized the full extent of a restrained and cultivated voice, one that arrested his attention and thoughts then transfixed them into the cold boulder of silence. "If you have trouble picturing it, then think of a clam. A clam is composed, basically, of a shell and meat. Religion is the entire clam, shell and all. However, morals are the meat inside the shell. Humans revere religion because they want the _meat_, the morals, inside of the shell. The meat is what is most important. For seafood enthusiasts, it could be the greatest meal they have ever experienced. Morals are the same. Humans who pursue things like righteousness and higher purposes look for morals to base their actions on. They want to do the right thing because doing the right thing reciprocates the good feelings of the helped to the helper. Then you could go on to say that this good feeling as a taste of ecstasy in the helper, provoking them to do more good."

"And the bad people? The murderers, the liars, the thieves, the neglectors? What are they to morals?" She stopped and looked at him with an air of incredulity as if she was lost at any idea of what to do with him, but within the minute she showed a small smile that he knew was pretense so he waited for what was to come.

"Not everyone likes clam meat, Cheren. Their nervous system may reject it." And she walked back to the tanks, adoring their majesty and watching the budding masses fabricate into humans. She felt instantly calmer at the sight of it, and after a moment, she spoke. "I undertook this project not for the same reasons as Colress. However, I will admit that even I was seduced by the legends of this Gene Sequence Database. It seemed so much like fantasy to me—how can you not be amazed at how far the human intellect has come in just thousands of years? And I, like Colress, wanted to see what it could do, but back then I assumed that we were working with smaller organisms—much smaller, microorganisms even! I had no idea we were to attempt to create another human being. Of course, I had my doubts at first. I knew that this was officially in the danger zone. What if our experiments went awry? What if our data leaked and fell into the wrong hands? What would the public think of our sanity? But most importantly, what if we had no other choice than to kill whatever the hell we had bred? I considered each one in the discussion of the grant proposal with Colress. But then I had come to a conclusion about myself—I was too perfect, too materialistic in nature. I only cared about my reputation and the reputation of my colleagues, about how the specimen would look if it had survived, about the total lack of discipline many researchers have often displayed here, and about how well programmed those gods of nerds and geeks had made the database. I wasn't getting at the meat. I didn't even cast a single, god-forsaken _thought_ about the specimen itself! I started questioning the emotional and mental state of the specimen to be created. So what if it didn't look as perfect as it looked on the screen? So what if it _still_ looks like a mass of tissue even after completion? It was a living thing and it deserved to be treated as such! I would take no other viewpoint. I went on with the proposal with the full determination to raise and cater to the needs of our subjects, regardless of perfection. It would be a challenge, but I would meet it with every ounce of strength and self-control I have."

"But what about," Cheren hesitated a moment within his speech and his eyes drifted toward the tablet of data cradled delicately in his arm. However, he swallowed quickly and, not wanting to upset his superior with his lack of complete ideas, gathered his fortitude and sense of gambling pride to rush the rest of his words out for the hell of it. "Their _other_ needs? I know you're not the type who falls in love so quickly, but—"

"_Carnal_ desires?" She slurred the word with a mixture of exhaustion and slight frustration—she had absolutely no patience on the subject at hand and was not likely to show even a single shred anytime soon. Immediately, Cheren regretted bringing up the topic, but now he was paralyzed as she whisked her line of sight to him with a scowl upon her face. But at least she still looked civil. "I have explicitly informed Colress that a joining together may be detrimental to the health of, of the female. We are also unsure if the DNA of the specimens will combine and duplicate then split as predicted and expected. Besides, it's a dirty deed—we can't have our subjects committing to some ill humor. It wouldn't be right. So, we spliced those desires out from the DNA sequence. More specifically, we have intentionally ignored the gene in the puberty sequence that would allow ovulation to occur—preventing these subjects from becoming pregnant. They'll still have eggs inside them, ovules, and the like, but those eggs will never become fertilized inside of their bodies. It's to ensure their health. Colress wants to have them live longer than the standard average for humans. He wants to learn more about them—or, rather, what the machine has done to them. Personally, I just want them to forever be virgins. I even doubt that they'll survive the joining process."

"But isn't that taking away part of what it means to be human?"

"Be specific. Carnal desires are based off of the instinctual need to survive and reproduce. These subjects have been programmed with the best genes we could think of—survival is almost guaranteed. However, they do not need to reproduce. We have billions and billions of people on this planet. We sure as hell don't want another one with the ability to make babies. It would throw us all into Hell faster. We want our subjects to be beyond us—higher on the totem pole. The best way to do this is to modify the glitches Mother Nature has programmed into us. However, being _human_ is something else. We don't know if they will be capable of loving or feeling any emotions and whatnot." She faced the tanks again, this time with concern laced in her eyes. "The human brain is a complex structure. Even at this age we don't know everything. We recently discovered how to manipulate memories to implant vital skills into our subjects. We'll just have to wait and see if emotions can work themselves out. But yes, I do hope for that. I do want to see them love purely without buckling under the crushing power of lust we lower humans are subjected to." She paused and slightly paced around the room, but her eyes were always transfixed upon the mystic presence and form of the aliens. "These specimens are designed to be a wonderful, honorable, and pure race free from the burdens of a loathsome god who just loves to play the love gun with all life, especially with females."

"It's comments like that that will make science and religion never get along. Maybe our mediator will be morals. Don't go on a killing spree to attack religions, Cytla. It's what people believe." He noticed her sharp look aimed straight to his eyes, but he held his ground. "You believe in morals, I can accept that, but these people—those people outside believe in some god, real or not. Eventually, you're just going to have to tolerate them. You don't have to believe in what they believe, but you do have to accept that they believe that way. If you do that then maybe they'll accept your own beliefs."

"I doubt that. After all, a man of reason is a man of sin." She held the expression of disgust in her eyes and a scowl on her lips, but all the same, it vanished to be replaced with exhaustion. She was in labor with her project, apparently.

"Then just try! You say that you believe in morals, right? The moral thing to do here is to express tolerance." For an instant, he had thought that she held the look of defeat, but he didn't chance his safety to pursue it any further. "And the first way you can tell them that you tolerate their views is to go out and speak to the press. Colress already gave you permission. Even if you don't want to speak, he can always speak for the lab. He, unlike you, has no trouble expressing tolerance."

If only you knew, kid, she thought, but she gave way with a sigh and rubbing of her temples. "Look, I'll see what I can do. I'm not happy about giving those people an audience, but if Colress speaks, we may just have a chance to settle them down."

"Just be honest with them, Cytla. Morals respect honesty. Hell, it might even win science more of the true respect it deserves." She muttered some curse under her breath before she rotated and animated her shoulders to limber and energize her body. She was getting ready to enter battle, she knew that full well, but she still held scorn for her promoter—that scrawny and meticulously neat kid standing no more than ten steps from her with glasses glaring under the dim light and tablet at the ready. "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"If this honesty shit of yours causes any complications whatsoever to the project or any of the researchers, it's your ass." Cheren, surprisingly, responded with a small smile at Cytla's sideways glare. He was confident in the outcome, knowing that she had enough sense to stay out of an argument that would only serve to get her worked up to the point where she could cause some serious damage.

"At least I gave you the best advice to approach the problem. Everything else is on you."


	2. The Annunciation

When Cytla stepped out of the main glass double doors of the research complex, she was immediately met with the busiest sight she had ever witnessed—a mob scene of reporters, protestors, spectators, and, most surprisingly a few colleagues. The mob moved as a swarmed unit—individual people found themselves lost to her recognition as they filed and swapped places with each other, blurring her vision with their white and colored faces, brown and gray hair, dark suits and gratifying spring attire. She immediately felt the onslaught of overwhelming waves of apprehension; regardless, she moved with the same mental focus of a cyborg and fell in line with fellow officials, but she caught the eye of Colress who regarded her with a cold stare and quick flick of his head.

The crowd ebbed and flowed, listening intently for any opportunity of attack on the highest official of the research facility, but she came off the public display as quickly as she came on. With graceful short words and a disarming smile, she gestured toward the real force behind the project—Colress—and relinquished the stage to him. Like magnets, eyes were drawn to him, ears opened for his voice, tape recorders at the ready, styluses at the ready, their points centimeters away from the surface of their electronic tablets. But Colress cared for none of it. He straightened his composure, adopted his normally unreadable expression, and addressed the mob with a detached gaze; he was ready for the verbal assault, but he held no intentions of withdrawing under the pressure presented before him. He craved it, in fact. He craved the interest and attention in his glorious project for he deemed it to be more important than the various trivial matters the reporters had developed a nasty appetite for. The only importance the world had to offer was the knowledge of everything in it, as Colress had stated before to Cytla just before the commencement of Project ETHEREAL. Knowledge was everything to him, everything he needed, but it need not be troubled with trivial matters such as practicality. However, he regarded the Gene Sequence Database as a potential gold mine in the discussion of DNA that would bring prosperous a future to the health of the human population. But his heart was about as warm and tender as the polar ice caps.

He took a breath as the first question was offered asking him to elaborate on the mystery of the massive database and the hotly disputed motives of the entire operation. This he did without hesitation for his mind had anticipated the answer and autonomously and efficiently computed the exact answer, but it was his voice speaking the truth, not Cytla's. His sleek glasses glinted in the early light, his posture was erect and extraordinarily still, his head stayed cool, and his voice was strong when speaking directly into the microphone. This mixture of reporters, broadcasters, and spectators, strangers or colleagues, were his specimens for the moment to be played with, experimented, and preyed upon. He could barely contain his excitement. "Project ETHEREAL is indeed the greatest endeavor that humankind has ever put into motion. I truly thank the government for granting us—the race of ever starving, ever ambitious knowledge seeking humans—the passageway into this glorious opportunity. The Gene Sequence Database is something of a miracle. Project ETHEREAL was designed to test the database's extraordinary limits for us to have an idea of where to take it next. And I assure you that so far we have not encountered much difficulty in achieving the desired products of this project." As he paused for a deliberately long moment, a lone reporter pushed and claimed his way through the walls of the people for the honor of having the attention of Colress for but a few seconds. He shouted and yelled among the crowd, waving his hand in the air at the same speed of a lunatic until Colress had finally given him some dignity and addressed him to the frontlines.

"Doctor Achroma, can you explain the details of the Gene Sequence Database? If this should be a great improvement to society, the world must be informed on the logistics. Please spare us the technical information."

"Of course." Colress smoothly and quickly pushed his glasses farther upon the bridge of his nose and cleared his throat before relaying information that was like a poem flowing and wrapping around his brain. "The Gene Sequence Database is a super computer, one we named The Master. It possesses the codes for every phenotypic trait that is possible without complication for the human individual. Hair color, eye color, skin texture, organ health, life expectancy in general, etc, to name a few. To commence Project ETHEREAL we have first planned out the specific phenotypic traits—that is, the traits that can be perceived by the senses—and scanned the database for the gene sequence in the DNA. From there, we have full customization abilities of the subject's DNA. The Master programs it to run on auto-pilot and the subjects are monitored accurately in every moment of the subjects developing life, including the first mitotic division of the single cell we have created. The subjects then flourish in a tank of aqueous solution until they have reached the conclusion of the incubation period, which is, roughly, six months. However, we have complete modification rights over the growth of the subjects. We aim to have completion occur when the subjects appear roughly around twenty years of age then The Master automatically shuts down the rapid growth gene and activates the gene of longevity. We plan on having these subjects live far beyond the human life expectancy for research purposes." Another reporter stood to be acknowledged in the same manner as the last, but Colress quickly whipped his attention to his pocket with the tingling sensation of an energetic vibrator. His pager had alarmed him to some extra maintenance of the developing subjects, courtesy of Hugh Aspertia, and with a graceful smile he excused himself from the stage and opened the floor to Cytla. She cursed her misfortune to be in the presence of Cheren that morning, but she still charged ahead and hoped that time would refrain from lagging.

Cheren's nonchalant words nagged against her skull, gnawing its way inside her brain as she stood before the masses, unwavering yet stiff in anticipation. She repeated Colress's earlier note of the greatest endeavor mankind had ever been brave enough to pursue and even went so far off to venture into more specific topics of the project, but never past the limits Colress had tacked onto her. Instead, she confessed that two female specimens were to be created, but the motives in the eyes of Colress were like acid in her mouth. She was blatantly honest, throwing her heavy cares aside for the moment in the very faces of the people she knew would have some comment fermenting and broiling with intense desire to spill right onto the skin of her face. But it had to be done, she thought and went ahead with the conclusion of the details.

And to her horror, a crowd of protestors marched and shoved their path through the mob with eyes firmly set upon her. Against her will, she acknowledged them. "What do you think you're going to do with the specimens once they're created? You're messing with life! You're a scientist, not a god. Act like a scientist! Damn you all!" Cytla was speechless, but security came onto the scene as quickly as she blinked an eye. But it was far from over. The protestors fought against the walls of black and strong arms pushing them backwards while shouting and screaming nonsense of religions and faith and morals, to which she had made the terrible mistake of gracing these accusations with an answer of her own morals while inciting terrible remarks of the protestors' merits. She spoke quickly, she spoke forcefully, and she spoke angrily. The reporters were settling their own voices to witness and record the obscenities from both the accuser and the accused, and the broadcasters made sure that every scene and every detail was accurately and precisely recorded.

In the lab lounge, Colress entered the room and stood just behind the couch Cheren now rested on. Their eyes were fixed directly onto the news as this hostile display of a clash of morals and opinions occurred without regard to the officials trying to retract Cytla or the guards trying to restrain the protestors. Cheren looked somewhat disappointed in his own advice, but the very thought of honesty was enough strength to bear through the embarrassment. However, Colress had different ideas swirling and bubbling in his mind. His expression was unreadable once more, but his face turned into a lighter shade of white and his eyes narrowed and hardened themselves. He would have a serious discussion with his partner later. But when Cheren had spoken, Colress barely caught the sound of his words. "Pardon?"

"I gave her the advice of being honest, and I think she took it at face value." He sunk into the plush comfort the couch offered, but there was only a glint of a devilish glare in Colress's eyes. He adjusted his glasses once more and turned on his heel to the exit as the ridiculous scene before them slowly made its way to a state of confused civility.

"I see."

Cytla's face was now sweaty from the pressure and slight embarrassment of defending herself to her protesting retards stubbornly refusing to back down, but she was certainly powerful in her own right. As she stood upon the stage over the masses gathered before her, she felt in control, in power, in the exact situation she needed to be in to engage in her plan of improving moral standards. However, she felt her self-control leaking out with every vomit of words her throat produced. It didn't take much after the playing God question to snap the leash connecting her to Colress. She had lost herself in that one moment as she spoke just a few sentences in an abrupt closing. "These individuals are meant to be better than us. They will not succumb to carnal desires in the name of _procreation_. They will be much smarter than that. They are smarter in the sense that they will not obey rules set by a jealous and imperfect God."

Colress's attention is, once again, attracted to the screen after his second round of maintenance. It had annoyed him at first that Cytla was so bold and daring enough to cause unnecessary strife between two different populations of people without acknowledging the honor of pursuing knowledge for its own sake. But this annoyance had sparked a thought seed in his brain. He looked over at Cheren and remembered his comment about honesty. If this project should fall or be delayed because of Cytla's passionate outburst, Colress knew that Cheren was the one to pay. He would see to that himself.

"And we're not going to stop with Project ETHEREAL, either. We have now commenced the procedure of Project TERRA, the brother to Project ETHEREAL. But science won't even think about stopping there! Other labs, other scientists will receive the notes and the data and be able to make individuals on their own, regardless of your selfish opinions. Your thoughts mean shit when it comes to science. And if you don't like that, crucify us." She ignored the roar of the mob and turned on her heel for the guards to escort her into the building and into the comforting silence.


	3. Penance

Cytla reentered the lab floor with a seething mind, but the last person she had wanted to contact was Colress. He ghosted into the corridor, as usual, but he immediately addressed her with the most stone-faced countenance she had ever witnessed from him. Great, here's a treat, she thought and proceeded to curse in the back of her mind. "Cytla, what the Hell went on out there?" She moved to speak, but he would not grant her the satisfaction yet. "Did I not warn you of the protestors? Did we not agree that you would produce even a shred of self-control that would separate you from the apes? I seem to remember these agreements, so why didn't you?" She wanted to speak again, burned for it, but she used her superior judgment and logic to retain her silence. When Colress spoke, no other human creature joined. "Our lab—no, our lives depend on the government giving us grants every two years. I can only write so much and convince so many people of the positive gains of our research. But that shit that just occurred today is a setback in our reputation. In our research, reputation is a key element. Do you agree?" She remained silent for his safety and slowly nodded her head. "Very good. I don't like seeing my lab in jeopardy, Cytla. It reflects badly upon us all. It could even cost you your place as my partner in this endeavor. You'd be missing out on the glory of our endgame. But what irked me even further was that you distorted our primary aspirations for Project ETHEREAL." Her lip twitched, but she held back any sign of a desire to talk. "We are not setting morals here. We are not proving or disproving that morals can be achieved without a god. We are associating this with neither religion nor morals. We are scientists. We are interested in what science can do. We will utilize the database for the knowledge of the database _only_. I will not have my lab turn into a church. Do you agree?" She found the checkpoint for talking as Colress seemed to calm himself by spouting out the bulk of his ideas first. However, she would have preferred that the discussion hadn't occurred at all.

"They were de-ranking the importance and the prestige of this project, Colress. Some even commented that we were doomed to create mole babies! I can't stand back and let them tread all over us and the years of our hard work. They are ignorant people, and I only offer the light of wisdom." She glanced at his face and flinched at the cold paleness it had adopted, but it became a true concern when his arms folded across his chest. She knew he was getting impatient and longing for the lab again, it was the only environment that was his nirvana, his paradise, but she was keeping him from it, and that meant death in a sense. "But how can you say that this project has nothing to do with morals? Colress, we're creating human beings here! Even if the database is a success, what will we do with the humans we had just created? They need emotional support, mental growth, basic materials and a friendly environment where they can establish some sort of bond with us. They will think that we are their parents. Therefore, we have to treat them like our children." He was silent during her whole speak and gestured her onwards to fully disclose her views on the matter. The why he considered the most important speck of knowledge he could gain. "We programmed them to be completely virgin, we erased all signals of carnal desires, and we increased their life expectancy. If we treat them correctly, life will figure itself out. They will be the perfect role models in morals for generations to come! We finally have the tools to give the world what it has asked for consistently." He was as silent as a stone, but his eyes were sharp as numbers and words and images circuited just before his pupils as he gazed upon her. He disagreed whole-heartedly with her, claiming that the perfection she seeks from her peers and strangers is regrettably impossible due to the sheer number of free will forces acting upon the billions and billions in the world. But he was thinking something quite deliberate, something that would slightly harm his own convictions but he hoped that it would completely destroy hers.

When Cytla finished speaking, there was calm about the air. But Colress was not through and blocked her way further into the corridor. "Why did you even engage them? Did you truly want to spout this moral nonsense and jeopardize this lab's credibility? In the past, you never would have even looked twice at the protestors or anyone else in general. What coerced you to commit that outrageous display of a lack of discipline?" She hesitated for a moment as she remembered the voice of Cheren ringing through her ears like the church bell, but she still held doubts about the truth. Yet, Colress was staring her down; his eyes burned though her skull to find the truth until she decided to end the torture and confess.

"I talked to Cheren right before the event. I didn't agree with him at first, but he suggested that I should gain some tolerance of this god-awful people. Apparently, I need to practice my honesty. Well, I practiced my honesty, and now look where it got us! We are in some deep shit here, Colress." He was quiet and contemplative for a few moments, allowing his private plan to ferment and promise him of all the success that he'll have at the cost of some of his honor. Within seconds, he de-folded his arms and waved her off aloofly.

"I've grown out of patience on the topic. Do not let me see another outburst like that again. I do not even want another verbal assault against these people to seep through your lips. If I find that you jeopardize the lab and our reputations again, your services will no longer be required. Is that understood?" She nodded but refused to say anything further since the finality had already been established. In triumph and concentration, Colress walked off toward the lab for more developmental maintenance, but Cytla found herself speechless. She bitterly disliked Colress's detachment to a project so human, but despite the warning previously assigned, she went on believing that the project was for greater morals and would stay that way, long after the completion of Project ETHEREAL. It was the silent force of a new age of being. Still, even she had her suspicions of an ever present harbinger.


	4. One's Shadow Part One

On the night that marked the start of the final week of Project ETHEREAL, gears were set into systematic motion. It was midnight and slight brisk in the air; the streetlights hovered a few meters above the streets like stars in the cosmos and swamped cars that went passed by in a sheath of orange glow. The night would only retreat with the arrival of Cheren and his seven o' clock rounds on the impressively grown subjects of Project ETHEREAL. But the mantle of darkness would not move for Colress. He moved briskly though the free air, his mind swamped with details, facts, and figures of the better plan in his mind. He was under the professional pretense of wrapping up some last minute maintenance and reports of the vital signs of the glowing and sleeping angels. The experiments performed just the afternoon before held the risk of mutation—he could not let himself sleep without the full knowledge that these beings were in perfect stable condition. But there was another pressing matter on his hands. The back of his mind rumbled with such violent intensity towards the moral standpoint of Cytla—how could that girl reject the pursuit of greater knowledge for the moral good of humans who were simply ungrateful?

Despite the storm raging inside his head, his face was calm and focused on the task at hand. He maneuvered around the iron gates and greeted the security guards docked right before the front doors. As expected, he thought then played them with subtle words of sincerity and tablets of proof, and they bought every bit of it. He was granted access to the facility under the strict time limit of thirty minutes for he was with neither supervision nor colleagues. But it was more than enough time he needed to complete the mission. He infiltrated the lab floor and within seconds he entered the silent and dim lab, the chamber of his marvelous work.

Still, he was rather determined as he gazed upon the two tanks. The subjects were now full grown women curled into the fetus position, their hair flowing behind them like the strands of light of an angel, their bodies still and soft with sleep, their minds elsewhere in the abstractness. The Master had placed oxygen masks that covered their noses and masks when they had first formed recognizable heads and possessed the capacity to breathe. They were humans, yet, they were angels. He could hardly look away from their fleshy beauty.

Remembering the time limit of thirty minutes, and calculating that he had only eighteen at his disposal, he moved towards The Master and ran the insertion program with a few pokes of his skinny index finger. Within an instant, the gene sequence of subject A opened and spilled out its contents in an overwhelming fashion, but he narrowed the results to target the sequences of the inner ear complexes then opened another window to display the codes of speech. He tapped three buttons to destroy the sequences.

Feeling confident in the final eight minutes he had, he closed the windows of subject A and targeted the sequence of subject B's eyes. He executed his malicious designs and disrupted the eye genes, but time slipped out from under him. He ordered The Master to resume autopilot and took one last look at the females as they twitched slightly but fell back into a frozen sleep. They can feel it, he mused, but the memory cells have not matured yet so they won't remember anything else but a bad dream. His face was unreadable, his glasses glinting in the dim light, his eyes filled with a sense of triumph and smile. He had witnessed just what the Gene Sequence Database was capable of, and he was proud of every moment of it.

His thoughts were cut short as the loudspeaker erupted and beckoned his leave, which he complied to with not the slightest bit of fuss or argument. His work was done.


	5. Project ETHEREAL

The day of reckoning was finally upon them. Project ETHEREAL completed after its last week with no real glitches of true importance or complications of the subjects. The female specimens were curled protectively within the glass shells, each grown fully and marvelously in the eyes of the researchers. Both held the softest looking and cleanest of skin, free from any abnormal growths or spots of malignity, the straightest of hair which flowed with the forces of the aqueous solution cradling them in its warmth and nutrition. Subject A was the first to reach full completion as she was implanted within the machine first. Her hair, even in that dim light, gleamed in a light emerald color for Cytla had wanted to test if the database was capable of employing sequences for abnormal hair color. Subject B held the traditional brown hair which cascaded like a waterfall of chocolate, but its luster was far from the mundane colors of the existing.

However, it was Cytla who postponed the birthing sequence of Subject A—she hardly caught even the slightest pinch of sleep last night and overslept the morning. She ran through the double doors, flashed her ID to the officials and dressed herself in her lab coat and standard protocol attire while speeding down the hallway leading to the lab. She arrived in time to catch the glares of her colleagues who had arrived an hour earlier, but she spewed her apologies and excuses then switched right into work.

"How are our beauties doing?" She directed the question towards Cheren and drank in the naked glory of her two subjects. As she gazed upon their peaceful faces and curled positions, her heart jumped against her ribcage, and suddenly she felt out of breath. She had felt her very first intimate connection to the creatures humbly presented before her, but she could not help but feel the shadow of a doubt towards their health. Her eyes quickly scanned over every inch of their delicate bodies in a fervent search for any abnormalities or imperfections that deviated from their images in the computer, despite what The Master reported. She found that in that instant she could not trust the computers, the monitors, or even the words of her colleagues assuring her that they were in perfect condition. She had to see the evidence for herself. Her heart then lurched for the official arrival of both subjects, and anticipation held her frozen in place—she could hardly accept the fact that the creatures that lived only within her thoughts were moments away from the interaction of the world, but most importantly, with her. Colress had momentarily watched her gaze become fascinated with every detail, but he immediately predicted her response to the subtle mutations and turned the other way.

"Cytla, before we proceed I need one final check of their vital signs and overall health. We cannot afford to lose them as the drainage begins. Hugh, prepare the vaccines for use. Injection will begin after they have received a brief acquaintance with Cytla." The gears clicked and move with synchronized speeds. Cytla quickly moved to The Master and ran the usual checks, but Cheren had noticed more time had passed on that procedure than necessary. It wasn't long until the revelation hit the lab. Cytla stopped in her tracks and stared at the computer—her heart dropped in her chest. The mutations were there, leering at her as they bit into the subjects and tore out one of the most important senses to fully enjoy and survive in life. She stood her ground and stared at the mutations with steady breaths and a pale face stained with the blue of a vein, but something had snapped inside her. She twisted her body to Colress's direction and spurted her words with great force and great frustration that unsettled even Cheren.

"There's been a mutation, Colress. Goddamn it! The Master programmed a mutation!" Wordlessly, Colress strode over to the main screen of The Master and, with his glasses gleaming white, he scanned the screen and witnessed his work for himself. "There's no way to fix it!"

"I'll search for the source. You are correct—The Master cannot correct any mutations at this point so close to the due date." He touched the screen frequently as Cytla closely watched his every move, every twitch of his nimble finger muscles, and the constant bright flashes of white and light blue of the screen. Eventually Colress navigated to the gene sequence responsible for the mutations in Subject A and Subject B in separate windows, but it broke Cytla's heart with every base pair. Colress proceeded to track any change recently made or malfunction previously overlooked, and The Master showed him the truth—the database reported that it was the genes for the senses of vision and hearing that malfunctioned. "Subject A had received a mutation to the structure of the inner ear complex as well as the total lack of any laryngeal cords. However, her vital signs are normal—she's in perfect condition for life. She will be born deaf and mute, it appears." He noticed the apprehension in Cytla's form, so he turned his attention to Cheren who clutched his tablet at the ready. "Prepare a course of sign language for Subject A. We will need to undertake one also." He turned back to the screen and researched the gene of eyesight for Subject A, the maiden flickering her eyes as her sweet and surreal dream came to an abrupt closing. The eye genes that they had programmed for her were designed to greatly surpass the average capabilities of sight, but even this—even Colress's calculations were a gamble to the project itself. He found himself muttering a few curses and swearing like a sailor as he flipped through various windows and finally located the precise gene sequence they banked all of their hopes on. But it had not changed from Subject A's implantation. "Her genes for the receptor cells in her retina are intact. If the Gene Sequence Database is all what it was sold to be, she should have supernatural sight. She won't be completely helpless—Subject A is successful."

"She still can't talk or hear. How is this successful? Who is Hell's bloody blue name would mutate her genes?" He turned his attention to her, unwavering and stone-faced as always, but she was animated now like a volcano trembling for release. "I don't know what that godforsaken computer did, but something happened to the genes. I'm thinking there was a security breach here." She suddenly had something click inside her. The last to check on Project ETHEREAL was none other than Cheren, the boy who had questioned her on the purpose of this project. She knew that he didn't believe in the project as humanity's greatest endeavor—he was more likely to side with the protestors and strike at its morality until the Judgment Day. She wasn't going to have any of that. She hesitated for a moment as she followed Colress's gaze that pointed straight for Cheren as he scribbled and poked in notes of the tragedy. "You were in here every morning, weren't you, Cheren?" He looked up from his tablet and merely blinked while answering in the affirmative. "You were the only one here before us. And you didn't see any of these mutations?" He nodded again, but her suspicious glare suggested the very worst outcome for him. He knew the situation would not look into his favor, but he reasoned that the best thing to do was to remain honest. Colress, however, commenced his attack.

"And you were the driving force behind Cytla's outburst in the interview." Cheren was frozen in his place, frozen with the fear of Colress's final judgment and a strong burning sensation that devoured his body. He had reached his end if it was what he had expected. "You were against this project from the beginning, weren't you?" Discretely, Colress tapped in a command on The Master that would be set into motion in no less than five minutes. "What do you have to say?"

"I was in support of this project, but," Cheren stuttered off as he met the accusation in the eyes of his superiors—he had very little strength to defend himself, after all. "But this is pushing it. I joined because I thought we were constructing a lower life form—I had no idea that we were creating humans. I knew what kind of effect this would have on the public, so I thought that honesty was the best way of handling the situation."

"Our situation has not improved." Colress spoke with the authority of a worldly professor that commanded the silence of his subject. His eyes were cold and calculating, but malicious intent spoke through them clearly enough to decide Cheren's fate. "You jeopardized the credibility of our lab and of our reputation as researchers. We may never undertake a project like this again. It seems logical that you would sabotage the project in an effort to stop the birthing process." Cheren was now mortified, but once he found the strength to talk and regained control of his legs, he took a step towards Cytla as a last attempt to save his respect.

"I didn't mutate the genes! I swear to you, I checked them every morning and they were exactly as we wanted them. I changed nothing!" However, Cytla was speechless once Colress spoke. Everything seemed to connect, seemed to make sense, but even she had trouble accepting the possibility that Cheren was capable of something so conniving, so vicious, not to her but to the subjects. The female specimens were innocent in every sense she could think of, but the very thought of their permanent punishment courtesy of a researcher was completely unacceptable. She said nothing to him in reply and allowed Colress to take the reins.

"I don't believe that you have an alibi. The most likely perpetrator is you. Security will escort you out and investigations will be applied." The security guards arrived at the door and the buzzer was sounded to boldly announce their arrival. Cheren remained frozen in disbelief as the next set of events whirled by his head. Colress escorted him to the exit without so much as an attempt to continue the argument any further than the investigation that would be placed on Cheren. Cytla remained unresponsive as she scanned The Master's screen and tried to relieve herself of the burden of caring for these crippled individuals. She only looked up when Hugh entered the lab with a tray of vaccinations placed very meticulously in a parallel assortment. With a deep breath and one last check of their healthy vital signs, Cytla brushed away her doubts and disbelief for what she had wanted so badly for years. She tapped the screen a few times and launched the final preparations for the birthing sequence of Subject A then handed the controls to Colress.

"Hugh, prepare for the arrival of Subject A. I want notes taken on her first experiences and my interaction with her. I want no detail left out." Hugh silently complied and pulled out his own tablet as Cytla approached the tank of Subject A. The specimen presented before seemed so delicate, so very fragile that Cytla had doubted if she was truly ready to be brought into the world. But despite all of her doubts, The Master reported positively on her overall health. "Colress, commence the birthing sequence." Within seconds and a few taps of a touch screen, the delivery finally began. Small green signal lights embedded like beads on the tank's upper machinery systematically flipped to red then the slow drainage of the aqueous solution commenced until Subject A was completely exposed to the airless environment.

As expected, they witnessed the body animate slowly with a few twitches, the expanding and contracting of her back, the rapid movement of her eyelids, but it was still a miracle in every way. Colress input a few more commands and the glass shell slowly, carefully retracted upwards at the same speed as the oxygen facial mask. Subject A was now completely exposed to the air around her, and Cytla almost died from joy as her subject desperately taking in her first gasps of real-world oxygen. It was a rough awakening for Subject A as she shivered and clutched her soaked and naked body and brushed the sticky bangs away from her eyes, but Cytla had all the patience in the world and Hugh had all the endurance. Eventually Subject A grew accustomed to her shivering and huffing and gathered enough curiosity and strength to gaze upon the pristine form standing above her with an air of superiority. Immediately, Subject A retreated her gaze and looked down upon her exposed and large chest, completely mortified at her helplessness and bewilderment, but then she noticed Colress and Hugh staring at body, taking in every detail with great appreciation and cynicism that the database had made into fruit. Subject A furiously become animated—she crossed her arms and covered at least half of her breasts and sat up straight to guard her rear, but now she shivered with fear under the gaze of Cytla and the soundless communication she somehow possessed to the others of her kind. Her eyes dashed from Cytla to Colress to Hugh, noting that their mouths were in motion, but no sound of any magnitude reached her ears. Further confusion caused her to feel the base of her neck with a shaky hand, and as she watched them, she tried to reproduce their oral motions with her lips. Hugh noticed this and tapped some heavily detailed notes onto the tablet, but this caught the eyes of Subject A. She watched him with an aroused curiosity as his finger flicked back and forth on the screen without a sound and without a break, prompting her to observe her own fingers, arms, and wrists. They were alike with his.

Hugh, in his brief period of uncertainty, itched with words brimming with the energy to report his thoughts to his superiors, but one look as Subject A's stress with her pure form was enough to spur him onwards. As he formulated and condensed his thoughts into words, he tapped his finger in a rhythm against the side of his tablet, a habit he picked up since highschool where he felt the burning desire and impatience to solve a research question. "Cytla," He spoke quietly, almost in her ear, but it was casual enough to not catch the attention of Colress who devoted himself to The Master and its report on Subject B. "Are you really sure that this is the right thing? That this is what you want?" She nodded twice quickly and flashed him an annoyed side glance. "This is what science has done to her. Look at her—she's naked, confused, and alone. She might as well have been hit by a truck and suffered and been put through a coma for ten years. The worst parts of her nature are exposed to all of us. How do you think she could possibly feel? I don't think she feels exactly flattered that we're using her as a test subject." Cytla corrected her stance and straightened her facial muscles into a more relaxed and kinder state before she turned fully to Hugh.

"When humans are born, they are not only naked, and confused but also drenched in blood. I believe that she has it made. Don't be confused about science and morals. It's all about how we treat the subjects. She's a human just like the rest of us and will be treated as such." She gestured to Subject A with her hand and smiled slightly. "Take a look at her. She makes you slip into love, doesn't she?" Hugh followed her gaze with an uneasy conscious, but his eyes had the perfect fortune of meeting hers and softer was his mind and kinder was his heart. She was alive, moving, breathing, and shakily surveying the environment with eyes filled with wonder and with fear. She looked to him for a moment and moved her lips, slowly at first as she was trying to mimic his own mouthing, but she quit as no sound rumbled in her throat and no understanding spread through his face. He was struck down in his prime by her wonder and pure beauty—her delicate apricot skin drenched in the remains of the slimy aqueous solution, her light green and lustrous hair clinging to her chest, shoulders and back like ivy vines, her radiant emerald eyes half-filled with frightened tears—that he was sure would be the death of him someday.

Cytla Jomaran stepped forth from her colleagues and addressed Subject A with a friendly smile and slowly outstretched her arm. If she's going to trust me, Cytla thought, she'll have to display it on her own. Subject A stared at her face for quite some time, her eyes piercing through Cytla's eyes and slicing into the meat of her thoughts, reading every note and every detail of Cytla's intentions with her outstretched hand. Hugh noted this great observation she seemed too interested in, but once she looked down to Cytla's seemingly gentle hand, he sighed quietly. Subject A's eyes were kinder and a little less afraid of the woman before her; slowly and shakily with remaining fear and apprehension, she reached out to Cytla and gingerly cradled her hand, her touch feeling as light as a wing of angel feathers. Cytla noticed this with great relief, and she responded in turn by taking her other hand and as carefully and as gently as a mother to her newborn child encased Subject A's hand between her palms and slightly squeezed as a reassurance. She was pleased to see the Subject A had not flinched nor blinked, only spectated what she had assumed to be her mother. Between her palms, Subject A's skin was moist with life, alive and warm with fresh blood, soothing like the rays of the sun in the middle of the coldest winter, and shocking at how uncanny it resembled the most gentle of human hands. Cytla was far beyond impressed at the capabilities of the database, but now she was hooked onto the charm of this delightfully interesting creature and held her hand with as much care as her nimble and steady hands could master after years of testing fresh samples of specimens and balancing delicate procedures with every drop of solution she added into cupped dishes and test tubes.

"Can you hear me? My name is Cytla." She spoke slowly and held invisible contact with Subject A's eyes to fully impress upon her that she was being addressed, but no such sign of recognition or reply came from those dampened and tender pink lips. Cytla tried once more, clearly and slowly, articulating with precise movements of her lips until she witnessed Subject A not answering her with words but mimicking the motion of her lips almost perfectly. Still, Cytla was at a loss. She decided that the best alternative for successfully communication was sign language; she knew that Subject A had full understanding of human words—the researchers made damn sure that they programmed the entirety of the English language into her memory cells to facilitate the art of communication—but now she needed to see those words with her hands. Cytla, conveniently, understood the basics of sign language after taking a required course in the subject for a degree in social work, but it was just enough to acquaint Subject A with herself, her situation, and her environment. Before she began, however, she turned her head halfway towards Hugh without letting go of Subject A's most delicate and dainty hand. "Hugh, don't stand there and gawk at her. Get her something to make herself decent. Check in the lounge closet, and we'll need another clothing item for Subject B. Colress will take the notes." The gears were set and commenced the motion, and only then did Cytla return to Subject A. Meticulously and slowly, Cytla formed and entire sentence with her nimble fingers and strong wrists working in perfect unison with each other. Subject A watched with hunger for this knowledge; she used her claimed hand to feel every inch and fold of Cytla's skin, every detail of her motions with a godly recognition and retention capabilities. Cytla only repeated her motions twice for Subject A to fully comprehend the meaning and to recite it perfectly. She shakily brought her other hand up and, utilizing her newfound knowledge, she performed the language in front of her maker:

HELLO, CYTLA.

Cytla Jomaran was astounded at this great accuracy and complete miracle presented before her. She turned to Colress with a bright smile on her face and a breathless voice, but he strictly looked at Subject A and tapped in a few brief paragraphs of notes. Cytla then proceeded to present Subject A with a form for each of the letters in the alphabet, one at a time, until Subject A memorized each form and method of how to obtain it with careful speculation and superhuman retention. Within minutes, Subject A presented Cytla with fuller, longer practice sentences and demonstrated the success of memory creation the database had fulfilled. It was the proudest moment in the careers of Cytla and Colress, but work had to be done in order to channel the success into what it was meant to be—the ultimate gift to mankind. However, Cytla did notice that Subject A was a true chatterbox—she hardly lost the attention of Cytla and practiced sentence after sentence after sentence with relative ease. Colress made note of this then mentioned, on the side, of potential personality tests to be administered to Subject A. He caught the attention of Subject A, but she shivered under his cold stare and unwavering observational stance, and at that moment, she became fully aware that she was indeed exposed and cold and she turned towards Cytla with a shameful blush.

WHO IS THAT MAN?

And Cytla responded quickly and truthfully, with brief comments on the nature of Colress's presence. However, she was very careful to completely avoid the fact that Subject A was created simply as a test of the Gene Sequence Database. It was an unnecessary shred of knowledge, and it would do only harm to the emotional dimensions of the subjects. But her most feared question was unavoidable.

WHY AM I HERE?

Cytla was motionless for a time and would make no real plans to answer without the coxing of Colress who now tapped down notes on the visible textures of Subject A's skin. Fortunately for Cytla, Hugh arrived, armed with an extra lab coat that he knew would be too large for her, and a plush bathrobe since he had picked the last lab coat. She retreated her hands instantly once she saw him and instinctually covered half of her breasts with a frightened pout on her pink lips, but he made quite the effort to look either at her face—away from her eyes since they could read into him like a book—or at the ground, for anywhere else would invite her to scorn him for quite a while. He approached her swiftly, too swiftly than she would have liked, and forcefully fanned out the lab coat and very carefully placed it upon her shoulders. However, once he felt the skin of her shoulders, he was caught in a trance at the mere quick contact and found himself growing ever attracted to her. But he stayed himself and allowed her to cover herself as she pleased. As she felt somewhat secure, Hugh brought Cytla off to the side while Colress proceeded to prepare the vaccinations for injection.

"Cytla," He spoke quietly once more but casually as to not evoke any attention from his cold and calculating superior, but this was unlikely—Colress meticulously prepared each syringe and inserted technical procedure notes into the tablet. "I don't like this. We're crossing the line past the line that I thought we were going to cross. I don't care if babies were brought into the world as naked as she is and covered in blood—they don't remember that when they grow. And here she is, as helpless as bacteria under a microscope, and she will remember it all. That's not a memory anyone can forget easily."

"I know that." She had sounded a bit aggravated at Hugh's persistence, but then she sighed and almost admitted defeat for the day. "I know that—it's what I've been thinking about during the development stage. I'm sure she'll get over it someday. We just have to not acknowledge the fact that her circumstance now has ever existed." Her gaze intensified into a glare to Hugh's eyes, but her eyes softened as she looked upon the delicate and sophisticated posture of the regal woman perched upon her legs on a stage of pure cold metal. "We will have to cater to her needs, make her feel at home and she may forget that this even happened. It's a start, but offering her clothing makes a big difference. Now, I want her to be prepped for the vaccinations. We cannot afford to waste time and run the risk of potential pathogens infiltrating her fresh body and blowing our best work to Hell." Hugh departed after a moment of hesitation, but what he really did was steal another glance towards Subject A who was eagerly awaiting Cytla's return. Immediately, Cytla engaged Subject A in another tutoring session with special direction to explain the vaccination procedure and offer her hand in some support if any fright from confusion and anxiety over the pain should claim her toward the interval. Subject A responded positively with a nod and clutched Cytla's hand firmly while her other hand made special care that the lab coat was wrapped securely around her chest. Hugh hurried back from the tray of Colress's prepared vaccines and gingerly rolled up a sleeve of Subject A's lab coat, swiped her kin with a very small amount of alcohol then inserted the first needle. He made the mistake in watching her face as it contorted so gracefully and so femininely in pain and fear of the metallic point penetrating deep into her skin to the walls of a thick vein. She made no sudden jerks or trembles, instead, she squeezed onto Cytla's hand and endured the rest of the process of injection and post repairs, but she was curious at the feeling of a sticky and flexible patch attached to her plush skin. Many more injections were made by the careful and meticulous skill of Hugh, but with each penetration, her face contorted in pain and her hand clung desperately to Cytla's until the sticky patch had sealed up the very tiny hole. Moments after the entire vaccination procedure was completed, Subject A suffered the numb sting and stiff soreness in both of her arms—Cytla noticed this by the way she observed her bandages and massaged the muscles of her slim arms.

Hugh proceeded to discard the needle of the syringe and deposited the barrel and plunger into a biohazard container to be thoroughly washed and sterilized before later use. Cytla quickly spoke in her silent language on the importance of leaving the bandages alone before she departed to Hugh's attention and the completed of the first stage of the birthing process. "That went better than I had expected. We now need to give her immune system some time to construct its defenses. Escort her to the accommodating room that was prepared. It should be sterilized. She needs to rest for her energy to be concentrated mostly on immunity. Then prepare the vaccines for Subject B." She instantly noticed the faltering look in Hugh's eyes and countenance as he looked to the fragility of Subject A as she tightly wrapped herself in a white cocoon. "After Project ETHEREAL has reached full completion, we'll turn our attention to clothing them, if it will get you to work more efficiently." Her voice was serious, but he regarded it as a playful jab at his own convictions and smiled a bit as he walked towards Subject A.

Upon his approach, Subject A found Hugh's eyes and silently conveyed a look of helpless confusion, but she gratefully and gracefully accepted his hand and allowed him to assist her to her feet—her grand height totaling five feet and four inches. She shakily took her first steps under Hugh's gentle coaxing and clumsily followed him to the third and sterilized hallway attached to the lab until they arrived in a large and generous bedroom, equipped with four plush beds blanketed with red-rose comforters, white carpets and large clear windows closed and covered partly with laced white curtains that caused a smile to curve her lips. He gestured forward, and she took the invitation and walked slowly and carefully to one of the beds, but when she collapsed upon the comforter, she immediately passed out in deep slumber. However, he invested a few moments to watch her smile as she dreamt, snuggle into the cloud comforting her head, and sigh out long drafts of breath. He could hardly believe that she was real, as real and alive as himself and all the others humans on the planet, but he remembered that another like her was just about to come into the world. With once last glance at her half veiled and peaceful face, he quietly closed the door and returned to the lab with an eagerness for the youth of what he called "project twins."

Immediately, another moral problem popped into his ever-sparring mind. When he found Cytla at the screen of The Master, he strode right over to her, but before he tapped on her shoulder to claim her attention, she focused her attention towards him because she already assumed that he had something to say. "If this is another moral thing,"

"It is." Unlike Cheren, Hugh was never coy in stating his true motives and thoughts to a superior, nor was he very gentle in presenting it. He saw the exasperated look in Cytla's eyes as she sighed for the umpteenth time and predicted that her reactions would be far less pleasant from the times before, but this time he had to pursue the moral topic. He had to know what would be the fate of these subjects if the mutations had been any less merciful to their phenotypic traits. He had to know, and that was the strength he used to pursue his superior, undaunted by her aggravation. "I-I need to know something. If the mutations were more severe, or if the specimens survived the development and birthing procedures but were mutated something awful, what would you do with them? I know that Colress would just take his tests, record his goddamned data and discard the ugly creature, but what would you do? You claim to be a moral person, so how would you find the solution?" Cytla merely stared at him and read his face—he was sincere in his questions and concerned for the answer, but it was such work to successfully and securely convey her convictions and ideals into this boy's head. But as he was stubborn to ask, she was just as stubborn to answer.

"I still would," She paused and mentally flinched at her thoughts that were not yet verbalize, but she forced herself to carry out the rest of her solution in a quiet and weakened voice. "I would look after them and care for them. We are creating life, after all." She lazily rubbed the back of her head and strained her neck to relieve accumulated pressure before tapping some commands into The Master. The second session of the birthing sequence commenced with the systematic change of green to red lights, and Cytla approached the tank as it spurred to life and emptied its contents. However, the unthinkable happened right before their eyes. The eyelids of Subject B rapidly moved and blinked as her dream abruptly dropped her into reality, and her muscles twitched and contracted, animating her body with more energy than had been expected. Concern flushed over the researchers' faces, especially when Subject B opened her eyes for the first time and saw nothing.

Instinctually, Subject B animated herself further with great fear, thrashing her arms and legs against the glass shell and screaming bloody murder in the most beautiful and emotional voice they had ever had the fortune to experience, but there was no time for any observations. Colress dashed to The Master and input commands to expedite the removal of the oxygen mask and glass shell after witnessing the first sign of a struggle to tear at the wires and machinery around her. As she was released from her prison, she quickly gathered her lips into a tight and protective ball as she trembled with the cold and the blinding fear of darkness, but her ears were alert to every slight sound in the lab. She understood the language of the researchers perfectly, but she could not identify who they were—to her knowledge, they were not to be trusted. When she heard one approach, she stiffened and shouted some gibberish in a desperate effort to drive off whatever would be bold enough to come too close to her. Cytla stopped at first to her unpredictable actions, but with a soft speed and gentle words, she began to approach the trembling mess of a person.

"It's all right—It's all right now. We are friends, and you are safe. My name is Cytla Jomaran." During her small speech, she noticed the young woman still her body and attentively listen like a child to her mother when the topic was any childhood joy, such as Christmas. "We are going to take care of you. Just stay calm, all right? Just stay calm." She gingerly reached out a hand towards Subject B and very cautiously approached further for the women was still with apprehension yet sharp attention. "I'm going to touch your arm now, all right? I'm going to touch your arm and do nothing else. Do you understand me?" A faint whimper came from the girl, a sound that seemed to be an affirmative answer to Cytla's experienced ears, but Cytla still felt compelled to assure the young subject of her safety even as she approached. The first contact she made with Subject B's skin went fairly well—Subject B only flinched sharply once she felt the skin of another rubbing somewhat gently on her own drenched fiber. It takes Cytla her full patience and kindness to completely tame the creature before her, but when she noticed Hugh's ambition to cover her naked form with the bathrobe, she quickly stopped him as Subject B's body stiffened in fear with the approaching steps of another unknown individual. "Don't touch her now. It might set her off again. Let her get used to her surroundings first. Just prepare the vaccinations. I'll clothe her." Hugh handed the robe over to Cytla then departed to prepare the next batch of vaccinations.

"Cytla, Subject B has suffered from severe eye mutations." Colress recorded the standard notes of protocol while scanning the report The Master offered him. "She is undeniably blind, but her ears and laryngeal activity seem to be highly acute." He mentally cursed himself for not completely crippling both creatures as a demonstration of The Master's total control over genetics; still, he kept his silence and allowed Cytla to take the hold for a brief while. She slowly and gingerly stroked the baby soft and fresh skin of Subject B before grasping her other arm and repeating the lulling strokes until the rigidness of her posture melted away and her sobbing quieted until it was obsolete.

"Listen, are you listening?" She gave another whimper in the affirmative, but, surprisingly, she did not flinch when Cytla slowly pried her arms away from her head. "May I see your face?" Subject B did nothing but acted like mold as Cytla reached out and gently lifted her chin to finally gaze upon her tear-stained and glimmering face. Cytla was then suddenly struck with the realization of this youth's beauty—her rich brown hair clung so effortlessly to her skin and sprawled in wide and narrow curling branches as if she was dipped in chocolate, her face was smooth and as slim as a lover's treasure, her eyes gray and empty with blindness but bright with innocence and wonder, her body as lean and as limber as they had planned. She was another perfect specimen brought to life by the wonders of The Master. Cytla was robbed of her words but not of her thoughts as she very gingerly tilted Subject B's head and inspected the rest of her face. "You certainly are a marvel. Did it hurt when you fell from Heaven?" Hugh quietly chuckled as he witnessed Subject B's expression of fear melt into sheer confusion, but this was the opportune time to finally clothe the youth since she made no fierce precautious to cover either her breasts or her groin and backside as Project A had with such stalwart determination. "I'm going to wrap you around in a robe, okay? It will warm you up. It's not going to hurt." Before she took hold of the robe, she motioned for Hugh to retrieve the vaccines but in a slow pace to avoid alarming the delicate woman before them. As quietly as she could, she opened the robe and gently clothed her naked back, sheathed her arms in its plush, and tied it securely at the waist after concealing her blessed breasts. However, the combination of her skin rubbing against the heavenly fabric aroused great curiosity within Subject B, but this curiosity was of her own body, more specifically her well-developed breasts. Fortunately, Cytla caught on to her actions—she stopped Subject B from disrobing herself while stating the great importance that the robe would be kept on her at all times unless she explicitly states otherwise. Subject B complained without much fuss, but she instantly grew silent for moments at a time—she occupied her time into listening very attentively to the researchers' voices and the systematic preparation of the vaccines. But she would only take orders from Cytla, the researcher she would most likely identify as her mother.

"Is she ready for the vaccinations?" Hugh carried the tray set with a series of syringes parallel to each other and watched the blankness in Subject B's countenance. "Is she all right?"

"We programmed her to have the most acute of hearing capabilities." Colress already jabbed at the involved procedure of filing report sheets of Project ETHEREAL's success, but even he could not help himself but to subtly observe the behavior of Subject B. "I assume that she is tuning herself into the natural sound rhythms of this complex. She is recording us as sounds—voices, footsteps, etc, etc. One must be silent in order to learn."

"Right. Let's start the vaccinations." Cytla reached out and touched Subject B's arm once more and moved to her side as Hugh approached as quietly as he could, vaccines and other supplies of preparation in hand. "Listen. We're going to inject some vaccinations into you. It will sting for a moment, but I promise it won't be long. It won't be long at all. Nod if you understand." Subject B was silent for a few moments longer, but her hand found Cytla's and gripped it with more strength than Cytla would have expected. Cytla glanced curiously at Colress once Subject B exhibited a small amount of her strength, but her attention was returned to the slightly frightened woman.

"I can speak." Subject B stuttered with the first syllable, but that was the only glitch in her speech. She impressed the researchers with her professionalism in articulating each syllable perfectly, without much pause in her speech, but it only served to show the glory and power The Master truly had. Cytla was becoming more of a believer. "I understand. But will you hold my hand, Cytla?" It astonished her. Her very own creation had spoken her name with the same intonation as a frightened and insecure child; it took every ounce of strength that Cytla had to restrain herself from embracing the woman before her, locking her in the warmest and most loving embrace she never knew she could display. "I would very much appreciate it."

"Okay, I will." She cut Subject B off quickly because she knew that her controls would malfunction if she had let the woman finish. She squeezed Subject B's hand with little force, but it gave great joy when she had responded with a little force of her own; however, even that little force Subject B exerted was enough to give Cytla reason to believe that her muscle genes had mutated as well and amplified their capacity for work. Hugh commenced the preparations on Subject B's arm, but already Cytla could tell that it would not be a smooth procedure—Subject B stiffened with her fears once more and silently dreaded what was to come. When Hugh inserted the first needle into her tender flesh, she gave a small yelp and thrashed her other arm against Cytla with moderate force, but Hugh never lost his concentration and quickly withdrew the needle from the slippery skin and applied a bandage. Before the second needle was inserted, however, Cytla took a risk and gently brought Subject B into an embrace and softly stroked her hair with words whispering promises of comfort and assurances. Eventually, Subject B relaxed her body and accepted Cytla's embrace while trying, unsuccessfully, to block out the sharp sting with every injection.

After the injections were complete, Hugh disposed of the syringes' parts to the necessary containers while Subject B slowly recovered from the stinging but now suffered from the same stiff and soreness as Subject A had experienced. For a moment, Subject B almost made the mistake of addressing Cytla with more affection than necessary, but she kept her eyes pointed to the floor and her ears sharp and ready to absorbed information. "Cytla, may I ask you a question?" This caught Cytla's full attention and curiosity from The Master screen now populated with images of different DNA molecules—the molecules of different subjects.

"Go ahead." Subject B took a full breath through her mouth, feeling the shift of the fabric against her skin and the funny sensation it brought to her brain.

"Who exactly are you? And who are the others?" Cytla hesitated for a moment while giving quick glances filled with concern for the topic at Colress and Hugh, but when she looked at Subject B, it was so much easier to answer.

"I am a scientist." She started slowly as a method to clear and filter her thoughts before they matured into words; she had to remain careful of what she said to maintain the delicate emotional dimension of the subject. "We research health benefits to humankind—that is, to those like you and me. These are my colleagues—Colress and Hugh. Hugh is the one who injected you with the vaccines. Anything else?"

"How did I get here?" She blurted out the question, but once again, Cytla tried desperately to search for a way out. She found none. "I had the most wondrous of dreams. It involved fantastic lullabies—the notes danced and swayed like stars on their branches. They fluttered around me like butterflies while singing an enchanted song. It was like a lullaby. It had put me to sleep." As Cytla was speechless, Colress was recording notes like the efficient cyborg Hugh and Cheren often claimed he was. "It was like a little piece of Heaven. Did I really fall from there?"

"No—that was just an expression. My, it seems odd that you would have such an experience." She found her way out of the troubling situation, and she banked everything she had on it. "Maybe a little rest would take care of it. I have someone I think you should meet. Hugh, help me escort her to the prepared bedroom." She took Subject B's hand once more and coaxed her along with a few tugs. "Right now, I want you to walk. Try to follow me, all right? I'm always going to be in front of you. Try to walk slowly so you avoid tripping." She coaxed Subject B forward and miraculously the youth stood steadily upon her trembling legs—her height totaling five feet and seven inches.

Slowly but steadily, Subject B followed Cytla and was followed by Hugh down the short sterile hallway and into a room that only had one inhabitant—the awake and alert Subject A. As Cytla directed Subject B to claim the bed right across from Subject A, the acute and rich emerald eyes of Subject A followed the form of her youthful counterpart, noting every detail of the woman's appearance, including her blindness, but unfortunately she could make no acknowledgment of the youth's most bell-like of voices. Cytla, noticing that Subject A was awake and perched like a lady upon her recently made comforter, approached her first specimen and performed a quick display of sign language:

THIS IS YOUR SISTER. TREAT HER KINDLY.

And Subject A nodded in agreement. But Subject B was brimming with curiosity—she mapped out the contents of the room by vibration alone, but not more than five feet from her was another being, one she hadn't registered before. But this being, for whatever reason, would not give way to a voice for recognition. Cytla turned her focus to Subject B and took one of her hands with her two palms, gently, or course, since Subject B was still growing accustomed to the sense of touch. "There's another person within this room other than Hugh and myself. She's sitting on the bed just across from you,"

"I can hear that." Cytla was slightly baffled for a moment, but she shook it off and continued with her planned thoughts.

"She is your sister. She was born just before you, but she's deaf and mute—she won't respond when you address her with speech, nor will she produce speech of her own. Therefore, you must communicate with her using sign language, like so." Making sure that Subject B could feel the sharp and precise movements of her hand and fingers, Cytla demonstrated some basics of sign language, roughly the same amount which she taught Subject A. As expected, Subject B was quiet and attentive, her fingers trailing over every form and curve, bend and shape that Cytla's hands demonstrated, and within moments, Subject B performed sentences of her own, exhibiting enough knowledge for Cytla to harbor much confidence. After much practice and much success, she allowed the women to finally interact with each other under her supervision. Cytla observed the facial expressions of both subjects, how they changed from coyness to a state of ease then to joy and finally into love characteristic of a sororal relationship.

But Cytla still had pressing matters on her mind. There was still research to be conducted, genes to be employed, work to be done. She left the scene of the two women enjoying each other's company to address Hugh who had quietly remained by the doorway and admired the beauty of the creatures he had a hand in creating. But when he caught the glimpse of determination and dire look in her eyes, he knew that he had to remain alert. "Mark this into your mind than transfer it to the master schedule. First, I want personality tests taken. I can do this myself—I believe I know a way. Then I want full tests on Subject A's sight and Subject B's audio-retention capabilities, language pronunciation and memorization, and hearing. Schedule an eye exam for Subject A, but tell those optometrists to prepare unusual font—that is, font too small for the average human eye to detect. I want to see how far her vision can really go. Call it a hunch, but I believe that it may be bordering the supernatural."

"And Subject B?" He just had to cut her off before her mouth moved a mile a minute, for he would be left completely in the dust. It just didn't feel the same to take her orders without the familiar weight of his personal tablet.

"I want her hearing range tested. Get the best audiologist you can contact to map the limits of her ears. She may even have them at supernatural levels as well. Then I want her speech and language retention tested. We'll test her in Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, and German. Get a specialist from those languages and have them get to work with her. But make sure you review their credentials and report them to Colress. I will take on the responsibility of care for these individuals as well as the commencement of Project TERRA."

"We're starting another project?" Hugh had a look of slight incredulity in his eyes, but there was also a feeling of hope—hope that the subjects of Project TERRA would be lucky enough to avoid any malicious mutations by some rabid protestor. He also held his doubts about Cheren's act of sabotage, but he had no evidence ready to state otherwise.

"Yes, it is the brother to Project ETHEREAL. You know what that implies? We will now test the database's ability to create the male individual. Colress has calculated that it will roughly take half of the time Project ETHEREAL had to complete development. But I will take no chances with this project. File out a report to get security to pull their acts together and prevent any suspicious characters from fucking around with this project. We will have no mistakes this time." Hugh fell into a state of silence in respect for his former colleague and friend, but when he looked to Cytla, he witnessed that she shared no such sentiments. Still, there was always room for reasonable doubt.

"You don't really believe it was Cheren, do you?" She bothered not to look at him and instead, she watched the sisters share their silent thoughts and their joys.

"I can't say that I do, but I can't disprove it either. Time will tell if it really was him. Just, for now, concentrate on the task at hand."

"I can't help but wonder why you would want to undertake a new project. Are you intending that the individuals of Project TERRA be paired off with those of Project ETHEREAL? It just might work."

"I wasn't intending that. I've been thinking, ever since we first implanted Subject A inside the tank, about the fragility of the human spirit. We don't know the depths of their mental and emotional dimensions yet, but we will in time. However, I kept nagging myself about the possibility of love coming into the picture." She paused for a bit to let her words have the full effect on her underling, and she continued with steady grace and deep honesty. "Love—what an abstract concept in science! But I knew it would be there. If these subjects are human, it will be there. But I'm sure that no run-of-the-mill man will fall in love for what he considers to be a _science project_." She noticed the look of slight hurt in his eyes and smiled reassuringly. "Except you. You're the only one. But researchers have to have some self-control in relations to their subjects. It wouldn't work between you and Project A." He blushed into a full red color and looked away from the three females, but she disregarded his proof of the truth and absently watched the females exchange thoughts. "We would have to construct male counterparts to give all of the subjects a full family experience. That's why we need Project TERRA. My only fear is that the male subjects may fall for either one of these females—or both—before we have time to establish the family boundaries. We, no, _I_ only want the subjects to grow up in the _normal_ way. Project TERRA will complete the first family of its kind. Does this make sense?" He answered with his affirmative reply then Cytla entered the hallway for a discussion with Colress over the development of the new Project TERRA. "I want those two monitored on a twenty-four hour basis. We have set up cameras in discreet locations in the room—set up a rotation schedule of researchers or security guards—anyone who is free—to make sure no protestors get in, they don't injure themselves, and if they get out, they don't go very far. Scheduled feeding times will be added to the master schedule and the restrooms are available down the hallway so they won't be out of the room for long. I also want thorough checks of their health and basic knowledge be put into motion once a day—noon at the earliest and five pm at the latest. I assume that the database successfully configured their memories and skills, but Colress wants to check the work ourselves. It's going to be rough for our two lovely ladies here."


	6. One's Shadow Part Two

Three months later, the night that marked the countdown to Project TERRA's official completion was upon them. After the press had their fill of the sabotage committed by the skilled and dirtied hands of Colress, Cheren was convicted without much thought to other possibilities by the law officials. However, Cytla still knew better. Cheren was too smart for his own good—he knew the importance of the honor code and of the pursuit of greater knowledge. He knew to avoid unnecessary setbacks, but she also noticed the complete lack of interest from Colress. He continued his work slowly, steadily, in the former position of Cheren as the host of morning checks on the subjects' vital signs. He enjoyed the work for what it was—a chance to truly marvel at The Master's superiority and miracles—but what he loved the most was the solitary experience and perfect opportune moments to throw a monkey wrench into Cytla's grand design for perfection. Cheren would be absent for two years at the least; Colress had plenty of time in wrapping up his designs without the suspicion of another night raid. He identified the risks, he even came to terms with the high probability that he would be faced with retribution, but it was for the best, he thought and carried on with his duties as a scientist and as a mentor.

He followed standard protocol of attire before entering the lab; after his entry, his mind and body were both focused on only The Master. He stayed true with his true intentions and checked the healthy vital signs of both subjects, but his mind soon deviated, and his fingers flicked and summoned the windows of Subject A's DNA. Within seconds, the deed was done. Colress, in his curiosity of the creatures, gazed upon Subject A during the duration of the mutation, but he had not expected to find that the subject's eyelids were flickering rapidly with heavy sleep and yet, brimming with more consciousness than expected. But it had soon passed, and Colress had smiled with a dominant glare within his eyes. "Bad dream?" He chuckled to himself before addressing The Master again and attempting to thrust his fingers within the DNA of Subject B.

However, he jolted away from The Master with the sharp sound of the lab doors reopening spontaneously. Before Hugh appeared from the forest of tanks, Colress silenced the applications of gene sequencing and ran the last phases of auto-pilot. Silently and maliciously, Colress had cursed Hugh upon the sight of him, but he professionally buried his most secret thoughts and gave the true reported results of both subjects. Without a shadow of a doubt, Hugh took that report at face value and commenced the routine health checks and computer strength before the completion of the report paper for the end of the day. Under Hugh's presence, Colress adapted into his reserved stature, answering the stray questions of his work that Hugh may have had, but his eyes were fixed firmly upon the second half of his creations. They were glorious creatures, frozen in aqueous solutions, brimming with the potential to do masculine work, resembling the most valiant of warriors with the most eager of minds. He only wondered how the mutation of Subject A would develop.


	7. Two Halves of the Cinematic Experience

In the office of Cytla Jomaran, Subject A of Project ETHEREAL, in her new and sophisticated dress of white silk, perched herself stiffly and elegantly upon the chair placed right before Cytla's desk overcrowded with documents that even the researchers could not identify. Before her, upon the mahogany desk, Cytla placed small objects varying slightly in size and greatly in shape, color, texture, luster, and even price in rows of no specific order. Just after the miraculous and even superhuman eye test that Subject A blew the researchers out of the water with, she was escorted to Cytla's office for a general personality test—one that was devised with Hugh's constant bickering on the necessity of a name in Cytla's ear. Cytla had tried to devise some name for a person who could see things on the microscopic level, but, as much as she lacked inventive imagination, she lacked overall patience. Instead, she reasoned, names are more important when thinking about personality, and within five minutes, she gathered the tools necessary for her test.

Hugh took careful note on the slow and calculating mannerisms Subject A's eyes displayed as she passed them from one item to the next, making no other motion than folding her delicate hands and placing them upon her lap. Eventually, her eyes landed upon the items that she knew would tickle her fancy if they were in her possession; as she twirled one of her pigtails with a slim finger, her commanded her other dainty hand clothed in white gloves to point and collect the three items she loved most. Both Hugh reanimates as his stylus taps and dances across his tablet, but Cytla collects the three items Subject A had distinguished and examined them—they were the most expensive and dear items among the cluttered display. "Well, at least The Master made her a woman." Cytla muttered as she recollected and returned every item to its original place then confronted Hugh to the side with a gesture for an overall observation of Subject A as she sat patiently and dully twirled her light green locks in curls around her fingers. "I still can't think of a name for her."

"Then just pick on online—there are thousands." Hugh briefly summarized his conclusions on his tablet before taking an interest in the form so quietly waiting for the next moment of the day.

"But that's too mundane! She needs to be unique—she needs a name that's special." When Cytla looked upon Subject A's form once more, she mentally slapped herself for not realizing the obvious conclusion. Subject A was perched strictly and gracefully upon the chair in a sophisticated manner as she let her lovely emeralds fly about the room, noting with meticulous care every detail of the office and her own movements as she retracted her hand to form a neat fold upon her lap once more. She was the very image of perfect etiquette in a quite feminine body and displayed further by the delicate motions of her hands and nimble fingers. She was an angel in silk fabrics, a goddess who handled everything with care, and a muse that could hardly be forgotten. She was a lady bred to be the embodiment of perfection. That was what Cytla saw and caught Hugh's attention. "I have the perfect name for her. We'll call her L'Arachel—a combination of _lady_ and _Rachel_. She is the lady of her flock and a lady in every sense—a lady, the first of her kind. Treat her like a precious and sacred rose, Hugh. She'll be the death of us all." As Hugh scribbled down notes at record speeds, Cytla approached her desk again and reached over for her own tablet. However, her hand swiped a precious desk ornament, one that had been a present to her from her grandfather when she was stuck within the confines of childhood, and within a second, the object fell into L'Arachel's hand. She quietly plopped the object back into its former place and, with a genuine smile both in her eyes and on her lips, she gazed into the observant brow furrowed in some confusion as her eyes glanced from the ornament to the slightly downcast and disinterested expression upon L'Arachel's radiant skin. However, Cytla had brushed it off as nothing more than coincidence when she glanced to Hugh, and she took her place in front of L'Arachel and bestowed upon her the name that screamed at her face.

They had escorted L'Arachel back to the shared room as she had craved for another session of silent reading and indulgent pampering—her two favorite pastimes since her birth. However, there was a change in her demeanor, Cytla noted with great accuracy. L'Arachel treaded into the shared room and remained unresponsive and disinterested in their attempts at sign language and waved them into dismissal with the mannerisms of a queen. Her eyes gracefully looked downwards and her radiance was paled with the lightness of her skin, giving Cytla the impression that she had grievously contracted an illness despite the immediate vaccinations. But Hugh's heart spoke otherwise with a disappointed sigh that caught Cytla's curiosity. "It seems like it's happening."

"What's happening? What do you know that I don't?" She hadn't meant it to sound offensive, just worrisome as L'Arachel took a seat in front of the window and rested her head against the large windowsill.

"We've made her _too_ human. The deadliest of all human emotions is loneliness and she's been struck down by it. All she wants is a companion to invest time and energy in."

"The Master was supposed to specifically avoid that."

"The Master is a machine, Cytla!" He caught her full attention of slight shock and exhaustion, but for once, he was glad that she looked this way. It proved that she was indeed a human. "Machine's still have glitches. This may have been one big glitch, but don't ignore it. L'Arachel's a human now and she needs somebody to share herself with—we know the solution to this problem."

"I understand. I know what she is possibly feeling right now—even I felt it once," Her voice trailed off in a sigh but started back again with more strength and rang into his ears. "But we cannot afford the risk of future complications! We have no idea what mating will do to her. We didn't program the necessary genes to handle pregnancy and delivery. Even if we did, we still don't know the legitimacy these genes will have when they are passed to the offspring. We have to avoid any complete tragedies for the benefit of humankind, regardless of the subjects' wishes." After a brief moment of silence, Cytla preferred the hallway to the downcast shared room with the priority of work taking the hold of her mind and the desire to finally hear silence from Hugh's throat. "Nevertheless, we still have tests to perform. Prepare for Subject B's audio test and memory-retention examination. We have a week to file the reports before the completion of Project TERRA ties our hands." Hugh complied with his orders, but his heart felt the bitter-sweet need of gazing upon L'Arachel's depressed countenance as she uselessly engaged herself in another reading.

They escorted Subject B into the sound booth and prepared the audiometer without much fuss from her, since she trusted Cytla's voice—the only voice that cared enough to reassure her consistently of her safety in this controlled test and explained to her the general rules to allow the time spent in the confinement to churn even faster. Seconds after Cytla and Hugh exited the booth and joined the best audiologist that Hugh could contact and convince to comply, the test began at 500 hertz, which Subject B could hear as clear as herself, with incrementally rising levels of hertz—all of which she could hear perfectly well without so much as a flash of surprise or a grimace of pain on her face. However, the results of her hearing soon went out of hand. Upon Cytla's encouragement, the audiologist turned down the test to 100 hertz and dared to even reach quieter sounds with a look of incredulity and skepticism, but all doubt was foiled when Subject B responded to even the faintest of sounds. It was a miracle at best, or maybe something even bordering the supernatural, Cytla thought with her jaw hanging at the wonders Subject B presented to her without flaw and without delay. Astounding, she thought as Subject B responded to the frequencies far beyond the average human range, these women are truly something special.

After the huge success of Subject B's hearing test, Cytla and Hugh escorted her to the quietest lounge the facility had to offer. It wasn't soundproof, but it was quiet enough for Subject B to easily tune into the heartbeats of her companions, lulling her slowly to sleep, but her dazed was shredded with the arrival of a team of language specialists. They were her teachers, her friends, instructing her professionally on the tongues of German, Latin, French, Spanish, and Italian, but she simple blew them away with her retention capabilities. She articulated the answers to each of their questions with a level of professionalism and fluency that far surpassed even their own, which was not taken kindly since they had devoted their whole lives to their respective tongues. Cytla and Hugh diligently recorded any observations and detailed results from each test, but Cytla quickly deviated into the field of finding a name for the multi-lingual child who stretched out upon the lounge's chair while meeting the professors' standards with barely any effort. She absorbed languages as a sponge absorbs water, but she held the respect enough to refrain from flaunting her supernatural abilities—Cytla made note of this with great zeal; it may even help her to find a name for the girl.

As quick as it had started, Subject B wrapped up the last of her Latin exam and hastily retreated for the shared room, but Cytla and Hugh made a strict point to lessen her speed. Cytla still remained in a rut over the name of the bouncing and singing child as they traverse hallway after hallway. She had scribbled some potential names in her tablet, but they were too bland, too overused, and too easy to be discarded. However, just as she was preparing to admit her defeat in an aggravated murmur, she caught the sweet sounds of Subject B's lullaby. The notes were light and gentle, wafting through the air as slick as butter and cradling the ears of Cytla and Hugh as a crib cradles a baby. Both researchers had fallen for her beauteous melodies and, enchanted by them, quickened their paces to hear fresher sounds as they blossomed from her throat. And inspiration smacked Cytla on her forehead. "You…seem to like singing, don't you?" Subject B whirled as gracefully as a spring breeze towards Cytla, a wide and glorious smile lightening her face. "What's your favorite kind?"

"I would prefer something soft and sweet. Something I don't have to dance to—I can just listen to it and fall asleep. Something that would make me feel…happier, about, you know." Her smile faded a bit, causing Cytla to fear that she would contract the illness that had plagued L'Arachel, but it was that same feeling, Hugh reasoned, within Subject B that connected her with L'Arachel.

"A lullaby, then. They can be sweet enough to lull anyone to sleep." She tapped her tablet once to shut it down after recording what she had hoped would be the last name she would be burdened with to create. "Say, do you know the importance of a name? Why do you suppose I introduced myself to you in the first place?" Subject B took no time to think for the loneliness, like a virus, invaded deeper into her body and forced her to long for an instance of sleep.

"To identify oneself. Without identification, one would be no different than a whisper in the wind." Both Cytla and Hugh had to look impressed for Subject B's little movement as she talked, but even she had to feel hurt by the lack of comfort within her own voice. Her definition of the nameless had singled herself out to be nothing worth consideration, amplifying her want for a lifelong companion, but if she had L'Arachel, she was happy enough for the moment.

"Then you'll be happy to know that I've finally arrived at a name for you. What do you think of _Kailolu_?" The woman let the foreign sounds sink into her head like water into a cushion, and when it was complete, she smiled slowly, her face alive with color and childish grace.

"It sounds like a lullaby. I love it. Thank you!" Before anything was said or done in reply, Hugh received a page from Colress for the commencement of Project TERRA's completion—an offer he simply couldn't refuse. Cytla, with apprehensiveness over the risky results awaiting her, sends Hugh off to the lab with assurances that she will arrive not even ten minutes later and escorts Kailolu the rest of the way to the shared room in silence for Kailolu was too grateful to even allow the slightest sound to escape her highly modified throat, but her silence was amplified with the hints of a surprise arriving later in the day.

"Kailolu, you are free to accommodate yourself in any way you prefer, but you must not leave this room. I'll return in maybe an hour with a surprise. I'm sure you'll like him—I mean it." Kailolu, ignoring every word but "surprise," twirled like a ballerina into the shared room and leapt upon the bed while singing a quiet song with such precision and accuracy, Cytla thought she was listening to the professionals performing on stage.

"_So come on, spin me around. Now I don't wanna go home, 'cause when you hold me like this you know my heart skips, skips a beat._" It was just a fragment of a song that Cytla had stored in the archives for what seemed like ages. She had let Kailolu listen to a few tracks and was readily astonished when the girl memorized every note and every lyric, and sang it with perfection. But the song itself sparked a hidden fear within Cytla. As she gazed upon Kailolu trying her best to settle herself, she knew the plan to keep Project ETHEREAL and Project TERRA was going to fall through with very little hesitation. She knew this, yet she forced herself to absolutely nothing to prevent it further. Whatever happens, happens, she thought conclusively and returned to the lab for the moment of reckoning.


	8. Project TERRA

Cytla Jomaran was struck dumb when she gazed upon Project TERRA's completed forms. Before her were two examples of the most physically able young men that she had ever laid her eyes on. They remained still, fixed in concentration with surreal sleep and nurtured by the aqueous solution that helped them into the form of adult men that Cytla secretly planned to pair off with the existing sisters. These subjects were a great contrast to their sororal counterparts—they were defined with complimentary and well-groomed muscular body, a body length that suggested superior height, short hair of varying blue colors, one in the medium range and the other as dark as midnight, which swayed gently with the ebb and flows of the liquid environment, but their faces were stern, even during sleep, and unshaken as if they held the experience of a thousand wars. Cytla even wondered briefly if these male specimens would be too rough for their sisters, if The Master enforced some strange mutation into their bodies, or if they would turn hostile in an alien environment. These thoughts aside, as a scientist, she was flooded with pride of her work and eagerness to obtain the rest of the results she craved for during months of waiting and silence. "Colress, what's the report of our boys?" Colress attended faithfully to The Master, his glasses glinting with a shining fire cold in its burns. He knew of the truth of his actions and recalled it in those moments, but he played his façade to its fullest and reported that the subjects were at the very pinnacle of health. In the moments before committing himself to the birthing sequence, he ordered Hugh to prepare the next set of vaccinations and adjusted his glasses then tapped the screen thrice.

Systematically and painfully slowly, the green lights embedded at the top of the tank clicked to red and the aqueous solution drained into the underground cistern. However, Hugh, once again, felt the persistent urge to pester his superior once more on a subject that she was anticipating at every minute in every day since the completion of Project ETHEREAL. Hugh wasted no time in capturing Cytla's attention merely by approaching her with a speed that suggested urgency, but she looked less than pleased. "Cytla, I have a bad feeling about this." She refused to look at him in the hopes that her apparent lack of attention would drive him away, but he was expecting that and drove himself further to the meat of his intentions. "I'm worried about L'Arachel. The loneliness seemed to be growing on her—I even saw it in Kailolu! What if Project TERRA feels the same effects? Should we just—"

"Stay your questions. Where were you during the Spanish Inquisition?" As she watched the liquid drain for the tank and gently settled Subject A on the cold metallic stage, Cytla had hoped wrongly that Hugh would back off, but he remained after her like a tick until she revealed the truth—the very truth that she thought would fail. "We have already made plans to accommodate that possibility. It's still in the working stages, but we have contacted another research lab to undertake a third project—Project DAWN—for this purpose. Actually, Project DAWN was born out of the absurd concept that The Master could engineer a female adult human with superpowers. Conveniently, we scheduled Subject DAWN to be paired with Subject A here. We're running this as a test. We may have inactivated the genes that incite mating, but we want to see the depths of a relationship that even The Master can't predict." She added quietly enough for Hugh to miss the sound, "But I don't think our plans will hold much longer."

Before Hugh had a chance to respond with what she already assumed was another onslaught of questions, the glass cage and oxygen mask retracted and threw Subject A into the world, tasked with survival by his own strength and wit. Miraculously, he took his first gasps at the air and at life then gathers enough of his belongings to let his eyes wander around the expansive and chilly lab, but, as expected, his sharp emerald eyes never left Cytla's image once they caught it. He didn't move much once their eyes connected, but she hesitated for a brief moment—she grew momentarily confused at exactly who was the scientist and who, the specimen. His eyes never left hers for several moments; she could feel him studying every mark on her face, every strand of hair tied back in a long and grand braid, every flicker of her eyelids and every thought that occasionally ran across her mind. He was reading her in the same manner of L'Arachel with his piercing emerald eyes and stone-faced expression rendering her helpless, but she was not prepared to lose the battle just yet. She refused to be held in fright by her own specimen—she was the scientist so possessed all of the power.

In reality, he had deeply pondered himself in the thicket of the mystery of his purpose; he studied Cytla for any signs of help, but, finding none, focused himself on peering into her thoughts instinctually. However, Colress's voice addressing Cytla snapped his attention to the lead scientist. He had heard that voice before in one of the deepest and darkest dreams he still remembered—it was a nightmare filled with riveting pain shattering down his back and infusing with every section of his body. He vividly remembered that most strange and god-awful feeling and he instantly found the culprit—his gaze hardened with his predestined anger, but his expression did not change. "Cytla, schedule a test for Subject A's sight and muscle capacity. I want full reports to be completed within the week. Project DAWN needs to be completed as soon as possible." Cytla had heard and even affirmed his commands, but she caught that most strange glare from Subject A and followed it to peer strangely at Colress. Seems like he's got a hostile personality, she had thought at first, but subconsciously gears were turning slowly around in her mind. She paid no attention to those thoughts and proceeded with her work, but when Colress felt the burning glare of Subject A directed towards his head, their eyes connected and his suspicions were confirmed—Subject A's nervous system was mature enough to feel and retain the memory of pain during the mutation. His probability of facing retribution had increased too much for his own comfort.

With the distraction that consumed Subject A, Cytla brushed away her earlier thoughts and approached her Subject A while taking preliminary notes of his phenotypic traits—his hair was short and clung neatly, color a darker blue and contrasted with his sharp emerald eyes, which she noticed once his attention focused on her. "Welcome home. My name is Cytla. These are my colleagues—"

"What is my purpose here?" He threw her completely off guard and off track. His voice rumbled deeper than she had expected and his face was as unwavering as ever, but she knew that he had meant that question, saw through the fluff and demanded answers. But she had none to give. Fortunately, Hugh's mouth could come in handy on occasion.

"I think The Master screwed up and engineered a fleshy version of itself." His voice attracted the eyes of Subject A, but he remained unmoved and gestured with his tablet for Cytla to appease the bewildered specimen. She straightened her vision once and sighed in an attempt to regain energy as she thought about the solution to this problem, but she couldn't help thinking that it was indeed a bizarre one—they had hit the jackpot of bizarre subjects.

"We have no purpose for you other than to live and to live fully. You'll see in greater detail what this truly entails." She erased the footprints perfectly, but his gaze upon her was less than understanding and his emotions were more than just real as she had expected. Her lies did not fool him.

"I must have a purpose. Without a purpose, I would have no need to live." He took this moment to gaze down at himself, observing the layer of skin across his arms, around his fingers, bound tightly to his thighs, before addressing her again. "And here I am—summoned before you. What will you have of me?" If his first words were enough to make Cytla speechless for a few moments, she was paralyzed with shock at the fluency of his words and bizarre behavior. But Hugh, with a small smile and relief that this subject was unafraid unlike his sisters, chuckled to himself and let his voice ring in Cytla's ear.

"This guy's a real riot. He comes before you like a servant. Do you really have the heart to turn him away?" She turned and glared at him somewhat awfully and mentally screamed the morals buzzing around in her head, but Subject A heard those words with interest and gazed upon Cytla with newfound respect and sudden awe.

"Is that it then?" The researchers casted their gazes upon him, but Cytla felt most unnerved from the look in his eyes. "I am to be your servant, then? If that is my purpose, I will gladly see to it that it is fulfilled. I will serve under your orders, _Lady_ Cytla." She was almost defeated by him then because that sincerity in his eyes was as clear as day. However, she had to persist; the original plan had to be followed; each of her subjects had to live fully as a normal human, complete with a family of siblings. But he was certainly a challenge.

"As long as you live and avoid killing yourself, you will have a purpose." That still didn't seem to get through to his acknowledgment, but regardless, she quit the deed and resumed with the completion of Project TERRA. "Now, we have to run inspections on you first—to ensure that you are as healthy as you were meant to be. If you would be so kind as to stand for me so that we may begin," He obeyed without a second thought and claimed his full height of six feet and seven inches, but he greatly towered over her and casted his shadow upon her frailer body. His muscular frame and commanding stature surely turned the heads of each of the researchers, but he made no frantic motion to cover any part of his body which Cytla noticed with slight horror. "Hugh, bring me the attire for him. We can't have him dying of hypothermia or future shame." As Hugh retrieved the garments, Cytla turned back to Subject A who had not a tinge of a blush upon his face or fear in his eyes—he shocked her at how quickly he had accepted his situation as a learning experience. "If you would permit, I would like to perform a quick search of your body to ensure you have no…abnormalities of any kind. It's standard procedure—another rule to ensure that you are as healthy as you seem. Do you understand?"

"Have at me as you will."

"He really is a riot." Hugh muttered while opening the package of sanitized clothing, but he hadn't caught the ear of Cytla who seemed somewhat surprised at Subject A's choice of words. She made her rounds upon his body, searching carefully for even the slightest change in texture or pigmentation, and he stood perfectly still with no sense of shame or fear, but this had a nagging effect of Cytla's mind. If this subject was not afraid of the researchers, there was no telling if he would comply with their wishes or refrain from harming any one of them. However, his vow to fulfill his self-proclaimed purpose as her servant was sincere enough to take at face-value, and she was willing enough to believe him. Upon seeing his back, something lurched inside of her—her eyes were magnetized to a large black mark on the skin of his left shoulder blade. It vaguely resembled a bird with wings and talons symmetrical and overall frame tilted slight on its side—it looked almost beautiful in a sense, but she saw no such beauty in the crude brand; she only saw the fruit of her horror.

"I'm going to touch your back now. Please don't move." He gave his silence as a reply and she proceeded to graze her fingers over the inked skin gently at first, but when she applied more pressure, she felt his skin jerk sharply, and a hiss escaped his mouth as he slightly moved away from her. Instinctually, she knew this mutation was worse than she had thought, but she was still curious as to the perfect shape of the mark. But these thoughts were unnecessary—he was in pain, and she, as a creator, was tasked to remedy her subject. "Did I hurt you?"

"It was a short-lived sting. I feel fine now, but I have to ask you to refrain from touching that spot again. That is my only request as your servant." She ignored him on the most part except for the warning to avoid that mark, but now she was mentally cursing The Master for bestowing him such awful genes. She hurried with her time and completed her inspection, but no other marks appeared on his skin, she assured him of that and informed him on that peculiar stain upon his left shoulder blade. But that was her mistake—now he felt oddly distinguished, as if he had been infected by a plague in a population that was the pinnacle of health. He fell quieter than his usual mannerisms by silencing his breathing while Cytla informed and slightly interrogated Colress about the mutation, but he held no serious reaction, as expected. As Hugh is finally ready with the clothes, she stops him cold and pulls him over to inspect the mark, rendering him speechless for the moment, but it was his reaction that finally prompted Colress to address The Master for any signs of other mutations, which he found only a gene coding for a slight increase in muscle strength. However, Cytla was driven near mad with frustration to listen to reason, but one look at the calm composure of Subject A and his brilliant emerald eyes was enough to force her to overlook the mark and proceed to cloth him with extra care around his back while explaining the vaccination procedure.

After the many rounds of vaccinations which Subject A endured without a fuss or even a speck of pain in his eyes, Cytla had explained the purpose of a family and lightened his spirits, although he didn't show it, with the expectations of two women—his "sisters"—waiting patiently for his arrival. She escorted him to the shared room and talked briefly about each of the young ladies, but she took the chance and explicitly informed him on their crippled senses. She waited for any type of reaction from him—a word of lament, a sigh of disappointment—but he was as silent as the grave and systematically nodded or verbalized his affirmation of understanding. He's an odd one, she thought quietly as she opened the door that guarded the muses, a regular black sheep. Kailolu listened intently to the disturbance and swallowed every one of Cytla's words of introduction like a black hole whereas L'Arachel's eyes darted to the sudden change in mood—a hunch, as Cytla could guess. When Subject A was aware that his family at this point consisted of women, he vowed to serve them almost to the extent of Cytla. However, even he could not have expected the beauty these angels were blessed with. One look of them left him enchanted and struck dumb with awe—he hardly willed himself to speak as a stabbing sensation pierced through his chest. But L'Arachel was the worst of it—she had killed him from the start. Her face was royally apricot with life, her blush as romantic a shade as roses, her form etiquette and sleek—what a wonderful doll to sit upon his lap—but her eyes sparkled with the joy of knowledge and disarmed him with glorious beams of truth. When their matching eyes connected at last, she blushed in amusement and surprise in his form then turned away just as quickly, but he had wished that she stayed a bit longer for pleasure's sake.

She fell into a pretense towards Cytla's sign language—she had already seen the truth behind Cytla's thoughts and clearly mapped out the current situation. Still, she couldn't help but pay attention once Subject A appeared as a topic.

THIS IS YOUR BROTHER. TREAT HIM KINDLY AND GENEROUSLY. TEACH HIM WHAT YOU KNOW. KAILOLU WILL ASSIST.

L'Arachel's heart leapt for joy when Zelgius took his place upon the bed next to her, her eyes sparkling with a radiant and healthy glow. Cytla had noticed this abrupt change in the air as she informed Kailolu of the situation—she was somewhat pleased with the grace and eagerness L'Arachel displayed with her performance and instruction, the way she assisted Subject A's hands into the formation of every word without the slightest trace of frustration. L'Arachel had finally found the one she felt the happiest with. So Hugh's prediction was exactly on target, she thought, but she still couldn't shake the nagging feeling eroding away at her concentration—this was a great deviation from the original plan; it couldn't possibly be done. However, after one look at the happiness that had spread into Subject A's eyes, her brain quickly processed a new plan. She took Hugh off to the side while they spectated the harmony of what she had hoped would be siblings. "This must be a happy day for you, Hugh. Your predictions were right for a change. We'll have to cancel the pairing of Project DAWN with Subject A." Inwardly, Hugh had celebrated over his victory—it wasn't everyday when he had gotten some form of recognition from his superiors over any risky ideas—until he realized the situation of Project DAWN. He had no knowledge of plans for a Subject B in the absurd project—Subject A of Project DAWN would have to survive being alone, he thought with great regret. "However, our endgame still remains the same. I want these subjects monitored on a twenty-four hour cycle to avoid the risk of the potentially fatal possibilities from becoming reality. And I want a strength test and eye exam scheduled for Subject A. He might have the same capabilities as L'Arachel." Hugh quickly scampered off to fulfill the requests before the arrival of the fourth and final subject, but Cytla stayed for just a moment longer and caught the most serene sight of L'Arachel entertaining Subject A with a bat of her eyelashes and caress of her hands as she instructed him further on her silent tongue. They're in love, Cytla thought with slight uncertainty for the future of these projects, but they were made for each other. She would never forget the look of genuine love they held for each other.

As Cytla re-entered the lab to complete the final leg of their journey, Colress was already tied to The Master, repetitively scanning the DNA of Subject B for any mutations that he hadn't made. However, she would not take his word. She claimed The Master's screen and witnessed the healthiest and most stable DNA the database had to offer—not one abnormal sequence besmirched its merit. Subject B would finally be created as she had pictured and wanted him to be. She initiated the birthing sequence with this bold confidence that neither Colress nor Hugh had shared as they watched the tank spring to life and drain away the superfluous fluid, eventually releasing Subject B to their shared environment.

Subject B became animate at a slightly faster rate than his predecessors, but he spent his first moments of real life by letting his weary eyes trek around the blurriness of the sterile environment, but when his vision cleared, his weary and brilliantly blue eyes settled and stuck upon the image of his damp hand. He eyed it confusedly and curiously, turning it about as if he was inspecting himself for mutations of any sort, but when Cytla approached to gain a view for herself, he stopped her short when his critical gaze and beautiful sapphire gems turned into a scowl as he placed them on her. Time had stopped for a moment inside of that lab—Colress was fascinated with the specimen and his defiant glare, but Hugh was startled into halting the preparation of the vaccines. Cytla instantly restrained herself to avoid the possibility of sparking Subject B into a rage, but she only noticed that persistence silence and bitter scowl he casted upon her—she had even assumed that he was waiting for her to speak, to move, to perform for his fancy. She thought that he was in control for only a moment then it passed with every word he spoke. "Who are you? What is this place?" His eyes fluttered around the glossy machines, bland walls, and empty tanks eerily mirroring his with their bright luster and metallic stage. Now he wants answers, she grimly thought and feared what was to follow—it was the same with every subject in one form or another.

"I am Cytla, and you are now home."

"Why am I here?" She swallowed hard and thought, these subjects are all the same. Immediately, distortions of the truth came to the forefront and began their attack, but he saw right through every one of them. His scowl worsened and his temper, which they had expected due to his male nature, rose steadily like fire, and she knew that this particular subject would be more than just a handful. "That's all bullshit. Why am I really here? What do you want with me?" She was on the borderline of defeat, swaying back and forth between the two sides, but one look from Colress encouraged a call for different tactics. She banked on her verbal skills and her luck, which had gotten her this far, and bared to face Subject B's scowl with courage.

"We want you to meet someone—a surprise, if you will. Surely you can remember what a family entails, yes? Can you remember?" He remained in a state of smoothen silence, but she noticed that his brow focus in confusion and his gaze lightened with curiosity. He could hardly believe the words of his mouth, but she felt a surge of triumph because she knew she had won him over without any casualties.

"I…I have a family?" His voice had even softened to a little higher than a whisper, and his eyes had stared at hers with some incredulity, but at this moment, she finally noticed what he truly looked like. Subconsciously, she took note of his muscular frame, slightly smaller than Subject A's, and his hair laid short on his scalp and was messier and lighter in shade than Subject A's—the color nearly matched his glowing eyes—but she also noted a great absence of mutations. He was the lucky one, she thought but instantly felt grief over the others. Why was it that only Subject B entered the world as perfectly as he looked upon The Master's screen?

"Yes, and you can spend all the time you'd like with them if only you would comply with our procedures." She motioned for Hugh to prepare the vaccinations and the clothes for Subject B also held no shame for himself. It must be a male thing, she thought briefly on the topic then pushed aside those thoughts as Subject B cautiously agreed.

The vaccination procedures proceeded on thin ice. In his defense, Subject B held a fierce scowl as Hugh worked on him, but this, along with his height of six feet and four inches, nearly petrified Hugh, causing his hands to shake and precariously jab the thin needle into random spots around his intended target. As expected, Subject B hissed and cursed like a sailor, but he did not strike Hugh, much to the diligent researcher's relief. To appease his pain somewhat, Cytla carefully informed him on the details of his family and clothed him with precise aim and dexterity to avoid inciting any more of his critical suspicions, but he remained quiet and yielding, rewarding her with trust one small fragment at a time. However, his glare still spiked when it reached Colress and Hugh as orders were given to schedule strength and hearing tests, papers were filed, and promises were made of a better life.

When Cytla opened the door of the shared room, however, Subject B was struck in shock. Something was off, he thought, something with these women. He noticed L'Arachel's lack of attention to the opening of the door and voice of Cytla, and Kailolu refused to look in his direction, but he knew why—her eyes were gray enough to sound his alarms. The only seemingly normal and healthy sibling was Subject A, but even Subject B could tell that there was anything but normalcy in Subject A's genetic code—it was written deep in his piercing emerald eyes. Without another word from Cytla or anyone else, Subject B sprang into action. "What happened to them? What did you do to these girls?" Cytla was astounded for just a moment at the keen perception Subject B displayed, but she concluded that it would only be a nuisance during further research. However, she had now realized the true extent of The Master—these were four real human creatures who not only displayed superior genes and health but they could think for themselves. This was the most dangerous weapon ever devised by humankind, after all. But she was pinned down by the truth and her ideals.

"We—there was an accident. Someone deliberately crippled these girls. L'Arachel lost her hearing and voice, and Kailolu lost her sight." He needed to hear no more of the horrors the scientists inflicted upon his sisters. He would deal with them later, but he cared only about these strangers called his family. He took one glance at Subject A, whom he had loosely identified as his elder brother, but he could see more than what was expressed by his stone-face—Subject A was changed by a mutation too. Subject B had no clue on what, but it had occurred to him that no such mutation changed any gene expressed or not in his body. He was the outcast, the blessed, and the black sheep in his flock—he was the lucky one. But it's not fair, he grumbled inside of his head as he immediately took his place next to Kailolu as her expression seemed to indicate a feeling of confusion and slight fear for all she had ever seen was inky darkness.

"How did it happen? Am I the only one that was spared?" His voice was irritated by now, grieving Cytla with the regret she knew was near deadly. But she had no reason to give on the purpose the accidents. They had happened, and she had tried her best to ease the situation the unsuspecting and innocent creatures were thrust into. However, in Subject B's convictions, not even that was enough. As Hugh arrived onto the scene armed with his tablet and a thin stylus, Subject B was already making himself known to his sister Kailolu by speaking to her in a calm manner and completely ignoring Cytla. As expected from Cytla's point of view, Hugh had required any observations that she had a knack for mentally recording with vivid accuracy, and she relayed them as well as more detailed plans of further tests without skipping a beat. But when she came upon his nature, she stopped short and recorded the positive influence he had over Kailolu.

"Subject B is, without a doubt, a free-thinker. I can understand that he doesn't trust you. This can't be The Master's fault though. There has to be some other reason for the mutations."

"Let's just be glad that it's over. The subjects are alive and well, and that's all that matters."

"According to Colress, the knowledge of The Master's strength is all that matters." She fell into silence for a few moments and subconsciously tuned into the soft conversation of Subject B and Kailolu. They were cheerful of their surreal circumstances, for the most part, but Subject B could not help but notice a cast of melancholy within the voice of his somewhat gentle counterpart. He tried his best to ignore the frightening truth and harsh reality, but he was faltering with every second he spent looking upon her radiant face.

"Kailolu, I know that you're afraid of this. It's all right. I won't give two shits about your appearance if you cry. I'll still stand by you." Kailolu found that her thoughts were in a maelstrom—she could hardly think of anything to say—and her throat swelled slightly enough where it became hard to swallow. She was flattered by his brutal honesty but scared to take that final step—the step that proved she was indeed human.

"It's quite fine. I'm…not too scared. It's like I'm constantly dreaming. Don't you worry about me—I'll be just all right." But he heard every drop of melancholy in her syllables. Without another note of encouragement or compassion because he reasoned that they would do no good, he placed one of his strong hands over her daintier one, almost covering it completely, and lightly squeezed with reassurance, and he was quite pleased when she didn't flinch or comment on his bold actions. However, he did notice one thing about her—a single tear slowly and painfully dragged itself down her cheek, dripped and splattered upon his skin as light as a feather. Kailolu, in slight embarrassment and true fear, discreetly flipped her held hand over and interlaced her fingers—she was truly afraid of her situation, but she had deemed him worthy and brave enough to lead her out of the darkness on the very day that she was ready. Their interlaced fingers and friendly conversation caught Cytla's sharp eyes with a slight nagging feeling of their original plans; she had assumed that it was another romantic interaction and had quickly abandoned the ideal dream of treating the four subjects as one happy and strange family. But, as she had expected, Hugh always had something to say about scenes that had interested her.

"I knew this would happen." He wrapped up the last of his notes and closed his tablet for the day. "It just goes to show you that the human being is more complex than we thought. Even The Master couldn't handle it completely." She ignored him, however, and addressed the sights of her subjects interacting even further in a state of smooth harmony; she saw that it was good—better than she even expected and far superior to her own society's social customs. L'Arachel was immersed in her teachings of the silent tongue to the man she had fancied, but it appeared that they were sitting ever closer to each other. Nothing bad would come of it, Cytla thought as she noticed the innocent and content countenance of L'Arachel—certainly a dramatic improvement from her previous melancholy and somber moping. Then Cytla heard a laugh; it was a beautiful laugh, not overbearing but pleasant to hear, but she also noted that it was a rare experience due to the contentment her ears received as it vibrated gently through them. She turned and followed the conversation of Kailolu and her dearest friend; she had just finished a convenient joke and that prompted Subject B to laugh with beauty. After being struck with inspiration like lightning, Cytla turned to Hugh with a sparkle of relief in her eyes.

"Hugh, I've already figured out a name for Subject B. We will name him Ike. Write that down and report to Colress." However, Hugh hesitated for a brief moment upon the deeper root of the name, but he passed it aside to scribble down notes even further. But she was as sharp as a tack as ever. "I know it's short for Isaac, but it has a nice ring to it. It might even make him happier."


	9. Like a Rose

After a few days of successful testing and interactions, the sun seemed to shine brighter into the research facility. Within the gym implanted into the basement of the facility, last minute tests were being conducted for the physical strength and endurance of Subject A and his younger brother Ike. It was rigorous hand demanding work—obstacles and obstacles awaited them followed by completely exhausting and stationary endurance activities that left them covered in a sticky and atrociously smelling film of fluid. It poured from their bodies, shed onto the floor and just as quickly, evaporated in the humid yet circulating air. Cytla and Hugh stand at the ready, armed with clicking watches and tablet with pen poised in an erect and sturdy manner. Across the shining field of wood, L'Arachel and Kailolu showed their acceptances of their invitations by perching ever so neatly upon the sturdy frame, but both women cackled with every ounce of sweat and stamina the men sacrificed for the greater good of knowledge. L'Arachel, however, transfixed her eyes upon the working body of Subject A, working her own mind into a frenzy of ideas both immaculate and deviant, but she caught herself before plunging into the abyss and looked away with an air and blush of dignity. If she had fallen for the trap the men presented before her so boldly, it would do her no good.

Cytla nodded with enthusiasm at the conclusions she allowed Hugh to tackle—the results of the strength and stamina tests were abnormal for the average athletic human adult. They had created not just men but the perfect soldiers. Quickly and efficiently, Cytla escorted Ike to wrap up the last of his hearing and language-retention exams as Hugh made for Subject A for the last vision screening. However, Subject A briefly focused his attention elsewhere and neglected his orders for once. His sharp emerald eyes glinted with a quiet light as they connected with L'Arachel's for but a short moment in time. Wordlessly, they communicated a need for communal solitude with affectionate gleams and light blushes from the lady—the world around them vanished and their very souls had become one. But it had ended just as quickly—he strode out of the door before she had even realized that his presence was gone.

On that night, the tests finally reached their conclusions. L'Arachel slipped like a ghost out of the shared room and into another, a small suite with a larger window covered partly by longer and white-laced silk curtains, short antique balcony and just enough exposed window to allow the moonlight to illuminate the room—it was the only light she intended to use. Quickly for she knew that he was approaching ever closer with every second, L'Arachel claimed a seat on the bed nearest to the window and disrobed with every intent of swaddling herself within the smoother and brighter white fabric of the new and elegant dress Cytla had provided as a replacement for her mundane clothing.

However, L'Arachel hadn't thought that he would be so quick in seeing to their rendezvous. The door opened somewhat swiftly and the first thing that his eyes stuck to was her bare and slim back. She covered herself with the rest of her dress and turned, frightened and startled, but he even quicker looked away shamefully to avoid her indignant glare. Yet, he could not erase her exquisite form from the film that was his memory. He immediately closed the door and patiently waited until she completed her clothing procedure and slowly opened it for him. He gasped at the elegant dress, how it twirled effortlessly around her ankles when she walked, how it glittered like snowflakes whenever she moved with a wave of grace, and how modest it claimed her fragile body to be. He was enchanted already—his countenance, for the first time, expressed the inner emotional workings of his body, but he made no attempt to regain control right away. Once she disarmed him with her gown and classy persona, she took him by the hand and led him directly to the bed where they sat and retained silence for a few moments longer. L'Arachel had nothing to say—she was already content with his presence alone in a separated room—but he was troubled with his own feelings. It was the strangest feeling that he felt, but his chest ached from several stab wounds whenever he looked at her; his throat swelled slightly for him to be self-conscious of it, but he found that he was glad that she was deaf whenever it struck; he never seemed to find the most accurate words to describe this emotional turmoil and true intentions to the young maiden due to the curse of being a gentleman in nature, but his severe love overwhelmed the dam gates. He began his confession in the silent tongue, hesitating only slightly to remember the exact procedures of every word, but even before he finished the second sentence, her hands quickly and gently clasped his, silently ordering him to stop, which he did without a moment of doubt. She leaned forward and chastely kissed his cheek, starling him into silence, then she walked over to the large window and waited for his arrival. Enchanted by her soft lips, he followed at her beckoning, and, together, the two swayed back and forth in each other's arms, looking at nothing else but each other's eyes. He loved her; she loved him. They said nothing else. Under the light of the moon, they were lovers and children, unafraid of what was to come and consumed by each other's natural need for happiness. When the moon was at its brightest, they drew ever closer to each other until their lips made contact and united their souls for the very first time.

Eventually, they arrived on the bed, kissing slowly and passionately and cuddling for the entire night. She laid upon him and settled herself as sleep descended as thickly as the night after hours of intimate and slow dancing that had tickled at the very strings of her heart. Feeling her weight on his body and lips as light as feathers tickling his own, he was truly happy for the first time on his short lifetime on earth. Before long, they succumbed to sleep around the same time while secured in each other's arms.

It was the morning after when Cytla and Hugh became paranoid over the missing subjects, and, as expected, Cytla worried herself senseless over the potential possibility that they broke the strictest rule these projects had—the refrain from mating. This would severely jeopardize the health of L'Arachel and the offspring, but Hugh didn't share the same level of worry of his superior—he had placed his trust in them long ago. Miraculously, he was right. He slowly opened the door of the room across from the shared room and gazed upon the lovesick pair peacefully sleeping in each other's embrace as innocently as angels. Cytla, relief beyond words, released the long huff of her held breath and rubbed her temples, but Hugh had loosely wondered if her sudden and furious wave of relief came from the fact that both subjects were still clothed. "Let's not disturb them." She whispered to Hugh at a close enough proximity that he could tell that she was serious and even a bit happy. "I'll talk to Colress about canceling the plans of pairing Subject A with Project DAWN."

"That's a good idea." He caught sight of the pair once more and noticed how securely Subject A embraced L'Arachel—it was almost as if he was afraid of losing her to the Grim Reaper. However, it also marked a bad impression on him. If she should die from illness, he'll follow her without a second thought, he thought quickly between his notes of tests and checkups for the day. "He has to be the most zealous human being on the planet." His words rung into and through her ears multiple times like waves of inspiration pummeling her brain until a few lights snapped on and wires connected in her inner circuitry.

"Get your tablet ready, Hugh," But he was already prepared and poised his stylus for the first set of notes for the day. "We'll name him Zelgius, after his zealous nature on spending time and devoting himself to this young woman. It has an earthy ring to it, actually." After a few seconds of taps and scribbles, the two researchers quietly and politely let the lovers have their peace and privacy, but they stopped short of going anywhere as Colress patrolled the corridor as expressionless and robotic as usual. Without a pause in his step, Colress ordered Hugh to contact the research team of Project DAWN to schedule a learning visit for Cytla in the near future, which she had some conflicts with—she had heard of Project DAWN's extreme ambition to engineer a female adult human with the capability of producing fire at will, but Cytla was still as skeptical as any other researcher not working on Project DAWN. Within seconds, Hugh vanished from the corridor and Cytla began her speech over the unprecedented intimate relationship of L'Arachel and Zelgius, but Colress waved her off in dismissal without skipping a beat and gestured to follow him into the lab. She complied with slight curiosity, but she was mostly suspicious—she had now realized that he did not much of anything upon the revelation of the three mutations. "Another lab is starting a fourth project—Project SAGGITARIUS. It was inspired by Project DAWN's own success, but these researchers are going completely out of bounds—more than I would have expected. Project SAGGITARIUS is in its infant stages now, but it seems to be strong. They're gathering various kinds of animals to extract DNA for the newer version of The Master—a compilation of not just human genes but whatever animals they so choose. And you'll like this bit of information—there was hardly a devastating mutation of Project DAWN. I want you to investigate further on the reason." She had tuned out at one point while pondering over the reality of Kailolu and Ike's relationship—she had assumed that it would have turned out much like Zelgius and L'Arachel's—but she tuned in at the end, the opportune moment, and gears churned around in her head. She recalled Cheren's voice echoing his honesty policy, and—knowing he was one to never break or even crack his convictions—was struck with the horrible reality that he hadn't told a lie at all. She recalled next the frightened stare of L'Arachel whenever she caught Colress's eye and the murderous glare Zelgius had held for her superior. They read him like an open book, and Ike's suspicions and Kailolu's whispers—it was enough to believe the truth. It all makes sense, she thought with strong shock and shame at her own logic for not piecing the puzzle together and sparing Cheren from his god-awful fate of separation from the haven of science. She blamed herself for the incident thereafter—after all that time of deceit the mutations weren't Cheren's fault. Her attention then pointed to Colress in his too calm for comfort demeanor. For the first time, she had seen and heard the truth as clearly as her subjects.

"It was you behind all this."

"Pardon?" He didn't seem confused—he actually waited and wanted her accusations to ring clearly than ever before, far from the quiet state her voice was in now.

"I don't know why I didn't see it before. You sabotaged those DNA molecules. You're the reason why three of my subjects are suffering from mutations!" He blinked at the ringing of her voice no filled with incredible relief and outrage for his atrocious crimes. In addition, she couldn't believe how horribly and defiantly cool he had been throughout the deeds and how detached his demeanor was now as she stood before him and revealed fact after fact. It was almost as if he was mocking her hard work and strong belief in morality.

"Yes. I committed the deeds." She was stripped of her voice so suddenly that it had felt like she was as mute and as helpless as L'Arachel, but Colress made no move further. He let his words sink in for just half of a minute before adjusting his glasses, as was his trademark, and folding his hands behind his back. "I purposely mutated the genes to fully test The Master's capabilities and framed Cheren because, ultimately, he was the one responsible for the decrease in merit for us as researchers and for our lab. It was a great success, after all, but you were an invaluable asset in your determination in our two projects. Thank you for your cooperation." Her trust and respect for this unholy man had long since shattered before another word slithered from his mouth, but she mustered her self-control and stayed her hand as it constricted into a hardened fist."

"Goddamn you."

"Ah, so you do believe in one." There was a slight smirk on his face, but out of a lasting respect for his colleague of many ages, he reverted to his frown and walked to the exit with a superior swagger that defined his confidence in his safety and reputation. There was little to no proof that he was the one who committed the atrocious deeds, and he was content with just that fact. However, Cytla, in a fit of rage, constricted her trembling fingers around a beaker and launched it in the direction of Colress's head, but he was beyond the door which the glassware shattered loudly upon impact. As she huffed in anger and rubbed her temples with the onslaught of another headache coaxed on by emotions, Hugh had revealed himself from behind an empty series of tanks, but his demeanor was far different from what she had expected—he was brimming with finality.

"Cytla," He called to her and she listened with strict attention because, for the first time that she had known him, he did not wield his tablet and stylus with an eagerness to record any kind of notes. Something must have snapped inside of him. Whatever he had to say, she knew that it was not going to be in her favor. "I want out. I've had enough of this hell hole. I refuse to work with any of you." She said nothing but nodded in silence—she was too upset and overwhelmed by the events of the day.


	10. Project DAWN and Conclusion

Project DAWN's acclaimed success had attracted researchers from various labs like moths to a nightlight. Cytla was no different. She planned a tour for herself to learn more about the absurd and bold antics of both Project DAWN and Project SAGGITARIUS in an attempt to occupy herself with a new job, one that was cleaner than the last. It had seemed so long ago when the truth finally exploded and destroyed her team, one by one, but that was in the past. When she entered the lab where Project DAWN had been conducted, she felt a rush of adrenaline spiking her interests once more. "Project SAGGITARIUS is our next attempt to understand the true capacity of The Master. We plan to combine certain animal DNA with human's to create healthy adult hybrids—humanoid most of the time with the ability to, at will, mutate into a larger and stronger version of their respective animal. It's still in the beginning stages of development, but we have high hopes and expectations for its results." Cytla, however, remained a stalwart skeptic. It was absurd enough that they supposedly created an adult human female who can control fire as easily as she can blink. It just doesn't seem to make sense. She thought without revealing any evidence of it while she was escorted to their prepared room for Subject DAWN. "If this test succeeds, The Master will truly be revered as mankind's greatest achievement yet. We will now be able to change the molecular and anatomical composition of individuals within seconds. These subjects will be the perfect soldiers for the future." But Cytla questioned the project's morality at every step of the way. She wondered about the very procedure of combining genes to recreate the human being into a primitive wild animal, but her thoughts clearly indicated to her that it was a step too far. The possibilities of landing in negative situations even if the project was a wild success like its predecessors seemed to be too likely and too dangerous to even take the risk. But they were trying without an ounce of fear in their eyes. Perhaps this was what Colress felt and thought during his massive endeavor in Project ETHEREAL and Project TERRA? However, Cytla was beyond that. She denied herself as a kind—she was merely a moral caretaker who had created life in an unorthodox way and was tasked with raising it. She was neither a god, nor was she a whore of science. She had morals and she had science—she was indeed human.

"Project DAWN was a brilliant success. As expected, she can summon fire at her will due to the consciously controlled secretion of a sticky and flammable liquid that combusts upon the rapid cooling it receives when it leaves her body. However, there was a slight mutation in the flesh of her left wrist, similar to the mutation of Subject A from Project TERRA. We don't know the origin of this mutation—there was no abnormal gene sequence in her DNA. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but this mark really bears little consequence." Eventually, they reached Subject DAWN's room and entered, but Cytla had mistaken the girl perched upon a desk chair for something of an angelic nature. Her form was lean and dainty, much like L'Arachel's and Kailolu's, but her hair was as silver as the radiant moonlight and her eyes were as golden as the sun. She was a human in every respect, but the light casted a soft glow upon her features, suggesting that she was something else entirely. When the door opened, she politely turned her attention towards her caretaker and Cytla, and her lips instantly shown a bright smile with eyes glinting in kindness. She was an angel in human form, Cytla concluded then she spotted the vivid red mark upon the maiden's left wrist. It resembled a sort of finely written and intricate writing of nobility, but she hid it so fast that Cytla had scarcely made anymore note of it.

"What is the girl's name?" She spoke directly for the first time since her arrival, but she made careful note to not let her eyes wander off of the dainty yet kind young maiden.

"We have named her Micaiah." Cytla's thoughts centered around one topic—religion—but she had thoughts it would be best if she were to disregard the topic for the superior knowledge of her methods towards science.

"It sounds Hebrew. Why?" The lead researcher smirked with confidence in her project's final result, but more importantly, she gestured to the red mark on her subject's hidden left wrist.

"She seems to be a miracle. That mark designates her—in the public's eye—as a spirit charmer. We named her appropriately. She is a natural preserver and protector of life now that she can utilize the strength and versatility of fire. See for yourself, Cytla." As curios as ever, Cytla approached Micaiah in a gentle gait and watched the maiden stand to her height—about five feet and six inches—and revealed the strange mutation of her flesh. Then she snapped her fingers and summoned a small and non-lethal wisp of flame—just enough for Cytla to be a believer in her own strengths and the true immortality of science.

She responded quietly, "I'll be damned sevenfold."


End file.
